All athletes have their rituals in the run-up to a big competition: for some it’s wearing lucky shorts, for others, it’s a particular game-day breakfast.
For footballers, it may include a ban on having sex — usually an edict from the team’s manager, on the basis that their players’ stamina and focus will suffer otherwise.
At the 1998 World Cup in France, the then England manager Glenn Hoddle forbade players from intercourse for during the tournament. Yet they were knocked out in the second round.
In the 2014 World Cup, squads from Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile and Mexico were all told to refrain from sex, while other teams were allowed to have sex within certain parameters: ‘not all night’ for the French, nothing acrobatic (!) for the Brazilians, and only with wives, not girlfriends for the Nigerians.
Harry Kane of England celebrates after victory after the UEFA Euro 2020 Championship Semi-final match between England and Denmark
WAGs Megan Davison, wife of Jordan Pickford, Annie Kilner, wife of Kyle Walker, and Rebekah Vardy, wife of Jamie, during the World Cup in 2018
After all that, it was the free-loving German team who took first place.
Outside football, this year it was reported that five-time Masters winner Tiger Woods had cut out sex in the run-up to this year’s golf tournament. He lost.
In fact, some of football’s biggest names have declared they believe sex the night before actually helps to improve their performance, from Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo to Brazilian legend Pele and Manchester United icon George Best.
So as England heads towards the Euros — which kick off in Germany next week — what does science say about the usefulness of sex bans, and is it something Gareth Southgate should consider introducing?
While there’s a lot of talk about it, ‘there is a lack of proper scientific investigation in this area’, says Rob Madden, a sports performance coach and physiotherapist who works with boxer Anthony Joshua and Formula 1.
‘And you can see why — it’s a difficult metric to measure. What kind of sex? Who with? How long before sport? Do you measure athletic outcomes or biological markers, such as hormones? It’s complicated.
‘Almost all the most recent studies suggest it doesn’t have a massive impact either way.’
There is one outlier — a small study published last year in The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness became the first to look at fitness in real-life competition as opposed to in the lab, and to show that sexual intercourse the night before a match may indeed have a negative influence on players’ performance.
Researchers enrolled 14 male players from a team in the Israeli Football Premier league and assessed their performance using GPS data of their movements in 88 football matches.
This was combined with telephone interviews after every match asking whether each player had indulged in sexual activity the night before.
The team of psychologists and medics found that the average speed during a match was slower when participants had pre-match intercourse (down by 0.5km/hr, from 6.5 to 6).
Interestingly, they only reported sexual intercourse the night before a match in 10.2 per cent of cases — suggesting it was a rarity among players anyway, despite almost 80 per cent of the men being in relationships.
However, ‘it’s difficult to draw decent conclusions from a study this small in isolation, but it’s an interesting addition to the conversation’, says Rob. ‘There are plenty of possible reasons for this outcome — tiredness from a late night is one.
‘But going forwards, it would be interesting to see clubs and their scientific teams look at these things in greater detail [if they planned to enact a sex ban].
‘For now, it’s fair to say that athletes need to be able to test what impact sex has on their personal performance and whether this is a factor for them to consider.’
Meanwhile, the majority of studies into the relationship between sporting performance and sex suggest there is no strong link either way.
Manager Glenn Hoddle in training with the England team during the 1998 World Cup
A review of the available research in 2022, by the University of California-Davis in the US, which analysed nine studies with 133 participants (all but one of them male) noted that no study had examined the impact of sexual activity on actual competition (i.e. how well they perform during a match), but instead drew conclusions from the effects of sexual activity on tests of physical fitness, including aerobic capacity, endurance and muscular strength or power.
Researchers concluded that none of these factors was significantly affected by sexual activity of any kind or duration for between 30 minutes and 24 hours before assessment.
‘The evidence for restricting sex before sport is thin, but it does come up among professionals,’ says sports performance psychologist Sally McGinn, who works with the British Paralympic badminton team and rugby players. ‘I think it is a little bit old-fashioned, given that the research into it doesn’t really hold up.’ So if science isn’t convincingly on its side, why has this idea stuck around so long?
‘Sometimes old wives’ tales just endure,’ says Rob. ‘If a coach or another sportsperson tells you, just as you’re starting your professional career, that having sex will make you perform worse, that message will often stick for the rest of your career.’
Going against it can have a bad impact psychologically, by making the athlete doubt their abilities, suggests Sally. More importantly, though, is the intent behind a sex ban that may make it effective, she says — focus and team bonding.
‘What it taps into, and what does matter, is that when a team is working towards a pinnacle, they want to minimise and manage any distractions, and focus on bonding as a team,’ she says. ‘Whether it’s having sex or going for a weekend away, an athlete must ask themselves, ‘Am I fully prepared to perform at the level I am expected to perform at, and is this activity going to contribute to or take away from my ability to perform at that level?’ ‘
Despite the team element, both experts suggest that whether sex is likely to be a help or hindrance to sporting performance is very much down to the individual.
Sally says: ‘For some athletes, stopping them [having sex] could take them out of their routine and out of what’s normal for them, and make them feel a little bit odd or on edge. For others, a late night having sex could impact their quality of sleep and, in turn, impact their behaviour and how they connect with their teammates because they’ll be grumpy and tired.’
This taps into what Rob says is the most important factor in the lead-up to a big sporting event: rest and recovery.
As for the idea that sex itself drains an athlete’s energy, this is baseless. Estimates put energy expenditure during a bout of intercourse at anywhere between 25 and at most 100 calories, ‘which is nothing much for an elite sportsperson’, he says. (For context, you can burn 25 calories by climbing the stairs a few times and 100 with a 15-minute walk around the block.)
But what about the old notion that having sex will ‘drain’ a man of testosterone?
The logic here is that he will then be less aggressive on the playing field, as the hormone is known to activate brain areas involved in aggressive behaviour (alongside sexual arousal).
In fact, scientific evidence suggests that sexual stimuli temporarily boosts testosterone levels in both men and women, but also reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol and releases ‘positive’ calming hormones such as oxytocin.
Rob says: ‘A week or even a day before an event, an athlete should be in peak form — there’s very little at that point we can do to improve your running speed, or build your fitness.
‘That time is about getting yourself as well rested as you can. So if you’re having sex, that could form a positive part of your recovery as it can reduce stress hormones, calm anxiety and can even be meditative because it’s something that should put your mind very ‘in the moment’.’
Indeed, a study published by the Journal of Sleep Research last year showed men and women found sex that culminated in orgasm improved sleep quality.
Other studies have shown that people who did not have sex experienced higher stress levels prior to big moments such as a public speaking event, compared with those who had sex in the fortnight before the engagement.
‘But if, after sex, you’re bed-sharing with someone who does not have the same temperature requirements for sleep, or who’s tossing and turning, it could have the opposite effect,’ says Rob.
So to truly be match-ready, perhaps sex is not off the cards — but you’re best off retiring to the spare room afterwards for a good night’s sleep.
This might suit footballers better than a sex ban, or risk leaving some annoyed WAGS in their wake!
Source: Mail Online
