These aren't just biomarkers; they are the fundamental signals governing your body's readiness, recovery, and resilience. For the performance-driven, understanding them isn't an option – it's a non-negotiable advantage.
Decoding your inner blueprint
Your body is a complex system, constantly communicating. For too long, its most critical messages have remained obscured. At Summa Labs, we're making those messages crystal clear, starting with the core pillars of your physiological state. These three hormones, measured in their free (active) form from saliva, offer a real-time snapshot of your performance biology.
The cornerstone: Free testosterone
Think of Free Testosterone as your performance accelerator and repair engine. It's the active form of the hormone directly linked to your drive, your capacity for growth, and your ability to bounce back stronger.
What it signals: Your readiness for intense training, your body's capacity to build and repair muscle tissue, your overall vigor and competitive edge.
Why it matters: A healthy Free Testosterone level fuels recovery, supports adaptation to stress, and underpins that feeling of unshakeable readiness. It's about maintaining your physical and mental horsepower.
The Regulator: Free cortisol
Free Cortisol is your body's stress manager and energy mobilizer. It’s essential for navigating daily demands and acute stress, but like any powerful tool, its overuse can lead to breakdown.
What it signals: Your body's response to physical and psychological stress. It helps you wake up, provides energy, and helps you respond to threats.
Why it matters: While crucial for acute responses, persistently elevated Free cortisol can signal overtraining, inadequate recovery, or chronic stress. It can impede recovery, affect sleep, and blunt your adaptive capacity. It's about knowing when you're pushing the limits and when you're crossing them.
The critical balance: The T/C ratio
This is where the magic happens. The T/C Ratio – Free Testosterone to Free Cortisol – is your ultimate readiness indicator and resilience barometer. It's not just about individual numbers; it's about their dynamic interplay.
What it signals: The balance between your body's building ( anabolic ) and breaking down ( catabolic ) processes. It’s a direct window into your recovery status and adaptive capacity.
Why it matters: A favorable T/C ratio indicates you are well-recovered, adapting positively to training, and primed for performance. A dip often precedes significant performance decrements, signaling insufficient recovery or impending overreach before other symptoms even appear. It’s your early warning system, allowing you to optimize training load and recovery protocols proactively.
Actionable Intelligence: Your Competitive Edge
These aren't abstract scientific figures. This is the intelligence you need to make proactive decisions.
Optimize training: Adjust intensity, volume, and recovery days based on real-time insights, not guesswork.
Prevent burnout: Identify early signs of overtraining or chronic stress before they impact performance and health.
Enhance recovery: Fine-tune your sleep, nutrition, and stress management strategies to support your body's natural restorative processes.
Unlock Peak Potential: Consistently operate within your optimal physiological window, maximizing gains and minimizing plateaus.
The era of guesswork is over. With Summa Labs, you gain precise, accessible, and actionable biomarker intelligence.
