*** Sex before a fight? Both sides to the story ***

Written by NZFighters.com staff

It’s the night before your fight. You can’t sleep. Your heart is racing fast and you can hear the ticking of the clock. Minute by minute passes...an hour goes by....that’s one less hour of sleep....you become more stressed. Next thing, you hear a light tap on the door. Your partner puts their head into the room and sais “hello sexy, it sounds like you can’t sleep. Me too.” You have two choices; you know what they are.....

The build-up to a good fight is exciting for both the competitors and those waiting to see the encounter, however there's at least one type of action that many fighters strictly avoid: sex.

There has been a long standing belief that sex before a fight saps a person’s energy, weakens muscles and lowers testosterone thus lowering aggression. Even Mohammed Ali has said that he avoided having sex for a full six weeks before his fights.

Here’s the good news

Some scientists claim that there is no hard evidence to suggest that sex before a competition is a bad thing. In fact, some studies show that pre-sports sex may in fact assist the athletes in a number of ways. Here are some facts:

• While sex can burn up a lot of energy (if you’re doing it right), the average couple doesn’t even burn a hundred calories during their lovemaking sessions!

• Even though sexual frustration may trigger an increase in aggression, pre-competition sex helps to reduce anxiety and increase relaxation

• There is no evidence to date that suggests that pre-competition sex negatively effects the athletes agility

• Ejaculation increases levels of testosterone which increases aggression, while long periods of abstinence causes testosterone levels to drop

According to one Italian researcher, who studied the effects of sex on performance, "After three months without sex, which is not so uncommon for some athletes, testosterone dramatically drops to levels close to children's levels. Do you think this may be useful for a boxer?"

Psychological Effects

The physiological effect of pre-competition sex is highly dependent on the individual. For some it’s a positive thing - for others it’s not. Some may find it a welcome distraction to help calm their nerves and alleviate anxiety while others may find the interruption to be counter-productive and would rather focus on nothing but their upcoming performance.

The best thing to do is to find out what works for you. However, here is a tip many scientist agree upon:

Never try anything new (in or out of bed) right before the fight; stick with what you know. Keep the experiment for regular training times.

Final Thoughts

It appears that pre-competition sex doesn’t negatively affect performance. In fact, it seems it may actually help. Through experimentation, if you find that sex enhances your performance, then go for it. However at the end of the day, this is something you and your trainer both need to agree on. As if you do have a good romp the night before and your trainer believes in abstinence, you had better hope you win.

Further Evidence

Here is an interesting video posted on YouTube. The show is called “sport science” and in this episode, they perform a number of tests (punching power, leg strength, cardiovascular endurance and testosterone levels) on a heavyweight boxer both before, and then after having sex.

NZFighters

no sex for about 2 weeks before, end of !
... makes you have more "Desire for the Fight"