TikTok's 'high test' body language claim, fact-checked
Quick answer
The creator claims one minute of expansive body posture will significantly raise testosterone and lower cortisol, framing this as both an acute hormonal intervention and a long-term neurochemical strategy. While embodied cognition research supports bidirectional body-brain signaling, the specific hormonal claims rest on power pose research that has largely failed independent replication. Clinically, testosterone levels are determined by the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, sleep, body composition, and in pathological cases, require medical assessment and treatment, not postural cues.
Our take · Written by FormBlends editorial team · Reviewed by FormBlends Medical Team· This is not a transcript. It is our independent review of the video above.
What did @mrjabarov actually say?
The claim is simple and bold: stand in an expansive pose for one minute, visualize success, and you will "decrease your cortisol and increase your testosterone significantly." He argues the body sends signals to the brain just as strongly as the brain sends signals to the body, and that sustained open, confident posture can produce long-term hormonal and neurochemical shifts that move you toward being a "high testosterone man."
He's drawing directly from the "power posing" hypothesis popularized by Amy Cuddy's 2010 research, even if he doesn't cite it. The core idea, that your physical posture feeds back into your endocrine system, is a real area of scientific inquiry. The problem is the evidence for it is far messier than this video lets on.
Does the science back this up?
Partially, but not the way he frames it. The original Cuddy et al. (2010, Psychological Science) study reported that two minutes of expansive posing raised testosterone by about 20% and lowered cortisol by about 25%. Those numbers went viral. Then came the replication crisis.
Ranehill et al. (2015, Psychological Science) ran a larger, pre-registered replication with 200 participants and found zero significant hormonal effects from power posing. Credé and Phillips (2017, Comprehensive Results in Social Psychology) reviewed 33 studies and concluded the hormonal effects were inconsistent at best. Simmons and Simonsohn (2017) argued the original findings were likely false positives. Even Cuddy's co-author Dana Carney publicly distanced herself from the hormonal claims in 2016.
Where the evidence does hold up somewhat is on subjective feelings. Some studies find people report feeling more confident after expansive postures, even when testosterone doesn't budge. That's not nothing, but it's a long way from "your whole neurochemistry is gonna change."
What did they get right, and where did they go wrong?
Credit where it's due: the bidirectional body-brain relationship is real. Embodied cognition research, including work by Niedenthal (2007, Science) and Barsalou (2008, Annual Review of Psychology), confirms that physical states influence mental ones. Smiling can mildly shift mood. Slouching can worsen affect. This isn't fringe science.
He also isn't wrong that chronic stress postures, rounded shoulders, collapsed chest, are associated with elevated cortisol in observational data. The directional causality he implies, however, is where things get shaky.
What he gets wrong is the specificity and certainty. Saying posture will "significantly" increase testosterone is not supported by the current weight of evidence. Promising a specific hormonal shift in "one minute" is the kind of precision that the data simply does not back. And the leap from a one-minute pose to "becoming a strong masculine high testosterone man" long-term is not a chain of evidence, it's a chain of speculation. Real testosterone optimization involves sleep quality, body composition, resistance training, and in cases of clinical hypogonadism, medical intervention. Posture is not a substitute for any of that.
What should you actually know?
If your testosterone is genuinely low, no amount of manspreading will fix it. Hypogonadism is a clinical condition diagnosed with blood work, not body language. The symptoms, low energy, reduced libido, poor recovery, mood changes, require proper evaluation. Lifestyle factors with real evidence behind them include resistance training (Raastad et al., 2000, European Journal of Applied Physiology), sleep optimization, body fat reduction, and stress management through validated methods like cognitive behavioral therapy or structured exercise.
The posture advice isn't harmful. Standing tall, keeping an open posture, and working on self-presentation have plausible benefits for confidence and social perception. But packaging that as a testosterone intervention is misleading in a way that could cause people to underestimate genuinely low T and delay getting tested.
If you're consistently tired, struggling with mood, or noticing changes in body composition and libido, get your labs done. A posture check won't tell you what your free testosterone levels are.
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The creator claims one minute of expansive body posture will significantly raise testosterone and lower cortisol, framing this as both an acute hormonal intervention and a long-term neurochemical strategy.
FormBlends verdict
The creator claims one minute of expansive body posture will significantly raise testosterone and lower cortisol, framing this as both an acute hormonal intervention and a long-term neurochemical strategy. While embodied cognition research supports bidirectional body-brain signaling, the specific hormonal claims rest on power pose research that has largely failed independent replication. Clinically, testosterone levels are determined by the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, sleep, body composition, and in pathological cases, require medical assessment and treatment, not postural cues.
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What it helps with
- The creator claims one minute of expansive body posture will significantly raise testosterone and lower cortisol, framing this as both an acute hormonal intervention and a long-term neurochemical strategy. While embodied cognition research supports bidirectional body-brain signaling, the specific hormonal claims rest on power pose research that has largely failed independent replication. Clinically, testosterone levels are determined by the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, sleep, body composition, and in pathological cases, require medical assessment and treatment, not postural cues.
- The original power pose hormone study (Cuddy et al., 2010) was not replicated in a larger pre-registered trial of 200 participants (Ranehill et al., 2015, Psychological Science).
- Co-author Dana Carney publicly withdrew her support for the hormonal claims of the original power pose research in 2016, citing concerns about the data.
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- It may not cover eligibility, contraindications, medication interactions, lab history, or dose escalation.
- Compound access, legal status, and product quality still need a separate safety check.
- Social video captions rarely show the full evidence base behind a claim.
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Start provider reviewWhat You'll Learn
- The original power pose hormone study (Cuddy et al., 2010) was not replicated in a larger pre-registered trial of 200 participants (Ranehill et al., 2015, Psychological Science).
- Co-author Dana Carney publicly withdrew her support for the hormonal claims of the original power pose research in 2016, citing concerns about the data.
- Embodied cognition is a legitimate field showing physical states influence mental states, but that does not extend to reliable acute testosterone spikes from posture.
- Resistance training has strong evidence for acutely and chronically influencing testosterone levels; posture does not have equivalent support.
- If you have symptoms of low testosterone such as fatigue, low libido, or mood changes, blood work measuring total and free testosterone is the appropriate first step, not a postural intervention.
- Subjective confidence benefits from expansive posture may be real even without hormonal changes, but conflating confidence with testosterone is not scientifically justified.
- Clinical hypogonadism is a medical diagnosis requiring treatment evaluation by a licensed provider, and lifestyle content on social media is not a substitute for that process.
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About the Creator
Kanan Jabarov · TikTok creator
237.4K views on this video
Taking more space is high test behaviour.
Sources & references
- [1]Cuddy et al. (2010)
- [2]Ranehill et al. (2015)
- [3]Raastad et al., 2000
- [4]Simmons and Simonsohn (2017)
- [5]Simonsohn (2017)
Citations extracted from our medical team's review. Click any citation to search PubMed.
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Not medical advice. This video was made by Kanan Jabarov, not by FormBlends. Our write-up above is an editorial review, not a medical recommendation. Talk to your doctor before making any decisions about medications or treatments.