Frank Mir: ‘TRT Just Put A Band-Aid On The Problem’

As Frank Mir gears up to fight Bigfoot Silva on Sunday in Brazil, many fans have taken note that this will be Mir’s first Octagon appearance since the ban of TRT, almost a year ago to date.

Mir was one of the fighters who was given a TUE (Testosterone Use Exemption) which allowed him to use Testosterone Replacement Therapy.

In the 12 months since his last Octagon appearance, Mir hasn’t used TRT, and is even going as far as to say that TRT was simply a band-aid, masking the real problem.

He spoke to MMAJunkie:

“TRT was patchwork – it was putting a Band-Aid on the problem. I went to a medical doctor, but I wasn’t searching out TRT. I just purely went to the doctor and said, ‘Hey, I don’t feel good, I have no energy, I’ve got no motivation, I’m kind of depressed. I’m constantly – guys are making jokes that I’m the most injured they’ve ever trained with. Every other day something breaks down on my body. What’s going on?’ Then they’re like, ‘Oh, well this is available.’”

“He did the blood work and found low testosterone. Now that they’ve banned it, I look at it and realized that wasn’t really the problem. Improper training and nutrition was the reason; training too hard and excessive, twice, three times a day, Monday through Friday. That was what was causing low testosterone. Looking back I realize that was just a symptom of the problem. I was just training improperly.”

Mir spoke about his past use of TRT, saying that now he realizes it wasn’t a permanent fix.

“It’s like, ‘Oh, you train improperly, but we’ll fix your hormone levels!’ It kind of helped out, but it still wasn’t the solution. The real solution was to train more intelligently, eat healthier, have longer off seasons where you train properly, not just sit on my butt and just wait for the next fight to be scheduled.

“The good thing would have been if TRT hadn’t been an option. I would have probably got the solution that I came to now sooner.”