Metabolic syndrome (MS) occurs with high frequency in general population. Most of the definitions of MS do not include insulin resistance (IR), therefore, IR occurrence in MS is not extensively examined. The aim of our study was to determine the frequency of IR in males with MS, association of IR with adipokines and cardiometabolic risk factors. In 86 males with MS, we determined serum fasting insulin and glucose (FG) and calculated IR using homeostatic model assessment (HOMA‑IR). Three adipokines (adiponectin, leptin, adipocyte fatty acid binding protein [A‑FABP]) and several cardiometabolic risk factors (total cholesterol TC, LDL‑cholesterol [LDL‑C], HDL‑cholesterol [HDL‑C], triglycerides [TG], apolipoprotein B [apoB], apolipoprotein A‑I [apo AI]), glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) were also determined. IR (HOMA‑IR ≥3.4) was found in nearly half of the patients. Fasting insulin was strongly correlated with HOMA‑IR (Spearman R = 0.973, p <0.001) and was also the strongest IR predictor: insulin cut‑off 13,4 mIU/L predicted HOMA‑IR ≥3.4 with 96% sensitivity and 94% specificity, AUC 0.993, p <0.0001). Leptin was significantly correlated with HOMA‑IR (R = 0.482, p <0.001) and independently predicted IR at cut‑off 9.02 ng/ml with 79% sensitivity and 59% specificity, AUC = 0.728, p = 0.0001. Fasting insulin and to some extent leptin are worthwhile addition to MS predicting IR in males with this syndrome.