Ronaldo and the Brazilians didn’t, and they won. Then the Nigerians also stopped doing it, too, but lost. This time Ecuador’s footballers are reported to be abstaining from sex during the World Cup, while the Ukraine side have apparently been offered the reward of being reunited with their wives if they reach the semi-finals.
But with players from a number of teams in the tournament being urged to hold back and save any scoring for the football pitch, research is increasingly showing that pre-match sex has little or no effect on subsequent performance. As long, that is, as it takes place at least two hours before kick-off and does not involve what a Croatian manager once called injury-causing and energy-sapping acrobatics.
It now appears that any negative effects may be not so much the physical consequences of sex as what can go with it. Or, as a former New York Yankees manager is reported to have put it: “It’s not the sex that wrecks these guys, it’s staying up all night looking for it.”
Football managers and sports coaches have, for decades, urged players to refrain from sex the night before the big game. Even the Ancient Greeks believed that sex was detrimental in the build-up to the Olympics.
The main theory behind these calls for abstinence is that sex saps the energy of athletes, lowers testosterone, reduces aggression, and makes people too happy and too content to go into competition. Many coaches and athletes believe that encouraging sexual frustration breeds aggression on the pitch.
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“The longstanding myth that athletes should practise abstinence before important competitions may stem from the theory that sexual frustration leads to increased aggression and that the act of ejaculation draws testosterone from the body,” says Dr Ian Shrier, of McGill University and the past-president of the Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine, which has carried out research in the area.
In reality, researchers have found little to support the idea that sex is energy-sapping. In fact, the energy expended in sex, up to 50 calories on average, or about 200 calories for 60 minutes of effort, is about the same as that used up in pushing a powered lawnmower, or climbing two flights of stairs, and is unlikely to have an impact on performance the following day. Research at the College of St Scholastica in Minnesota found no effect on exercise capacity a few hours after sex. Researchers compared the performance of men on a treadmill 12 hours after sex with performance after no sex and their results show no difference in aerobic power, heart performance or oxygen use.
“Our data suggest that it is justified to dismiss the view that sexual intercourse decreases maximal exercise performance,” says Professor Tommy Boone. Another study at Colorado State University found that grip strength, balance, movement, reaction time and lung capacity were also not affected after sexual activity.
Cardiologists at the University Hospital of Geneva, Switzerland, found similar effects for sex on a cycling stress test, although they also identified a downside to competing within two hours of sex. In that research, 15 top-level male athletes, including footballers, were tested on days with and without sex.
The results show that sexual activity had no detrimental effect on the maximum exercise levels achieved, but the athletes were more stressed on tests that took place within two hours of sex. “Recovery capacity of an athlete could be affected if he had intercourse two hours before a competition event,” they say.
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One of the main claims made in support of abstinence is that it keeps testosterone levels high. “Sex makes you happy and happy people don’t run a 3:47 mile,” says Marty Liquori, once one of the top 5,000m runners.
One study of 28 men at Zhejiang University in China, which looked at sexual activity and testosterone levels, found that blood levels of testosterone were affected but in an unusual way. For the first six days of abstention pretty much nothing happened, but on the seventh day testosterone levels rose by about 50 per cent, before declining again. Why is not clear.
Results from other studies have muddied the water and shown that like football, research can be a game with two sides. A team of Italian researchers from the University of L’Aquila found that testosterone levels rose quickly after sex and stayed elevated for some time, suggesting that sex before football is a good idea. “If a man has sexual intercourse, testosterone causes him to desire the next sexual intercourse. When you play a sport like football, which requires aggression, the extra testosterone may be useful,” they said.
Some coaches have pointed to the risk of injuries during sex. In Euro 2004 Croatia players were told by their coach to refrain from acrobatic sex to avoid possible injuries. “The most important thing is that it does not involve any ‘excessive sex’,” said Zoran Bahtijarevic.
While another theory points to the likelihood that sex, or the lack of it, will have different effects on the performance of different people, yet another explanation is that the real reason why coaches don’t like players having sex before a game is because it interferes with bonding and team spirit, especially away from home.
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“The effect of sex the night before competition likely depends on the individual athlete. If there is an effect, it is through psychological mechanisms, lack of focus, anxiety, aggression, and so on. So, if sex the night before is calming to a person, and he is too nervous or anxious, it will have a positive effect. But if the person is already relaxed enough, it would have a negative effect,” says Dr Shrier. He adds: “
In team sports, especially on the road, coaches also have to consider the effects on the team if one or two athletes are out on the town looking for someone.”
Although research findings are divided on what coaches and players should or should not do before the football games in Germany over the next few weeks, one clue emerges from research involving one man, his beard, an electric razor and a set of scales, which suggest that Ukraine’s manager may have got it right.
“That research gave us the first hint that expectation of sex or motivation can affect testosterone secretions,” says Professor Gareth Leng, a professor of experimental physiology at the University of Edinburgh. He says the research, published anonymously, recorded how a scientist working in the field at an all-male outpost had noticed that his beard appeared to grow more in the days before rare visits by his girlfriend. Beards grow more when testosterone levels are higher, so he weighed each day’s shavings, plotted their weight on a chart and showed that the size of clippings peaked in the days leading to reunification with his partner.
What are the odds on Ukraine winning now?