Ah, yes... The age-old question. Does sex help your performance before a big game? We’ve been arguing over this for years, and nothing that new has emerged, except that Diego Maradona advocated sex for his Argentina team during the World Cup.
Should Athletes Have Sex Before Sporting Events?
This prompted Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva—clearly not a descendant of that “one name” tradition among Brazilian celebrities (err...maybe he is?)—to muse, “I want to see the Argentines arrive staggering and exhausted to their games and Brazil will win this World Cup.” And, um... Staggering and exhausted? What kind of sex does the Brazilian President have?
It also prompted this story from ESPN, which is just brimming with cringe inducing quotes about that old tabooed pastime: Sex with whips and chains, hanging from the ceiling.
Does sex have any affect on athletic performance? Absolutely not, says Dr. Tommy Boone.
“Even if a person was hung by whips and chains from the ceiling, the total amount of energy consumed is not enough to produce a significant cardiovascular effect,” he said.
The article continues, relaying anecdotes from other stars throughout history. But really, less so than whether Muhammad Ali had sex before a fight, the quotes here are just the best:
“You’re not going to get some athlete achieving maximum performance if he is loaded down with stress,” Boone said. “The release that is associated with a heightened state of arousal sets the stage for better psychological preparation, be it in a business deal or at an athletic event.”
And more:
“The key to all this is the context in which the sex occurs,” said Dr. Barry Komisaruk, a psychology professor at Rutgers who has studied the effects of sex on the human brain. “If it’s with booze and late nights and getting hooked on some woman and wondering if she loves you, then yeah, that could be very deleterious.”
And then there’s Alex Ovechkin, who claims, “Sex really does help. Before and after.”
...On the other hand, there’s an old quote from ex-Yankees manager Casey Stengel: “The trouble is not that players have sex the night before a game. It’s that they stay out all night looking for it.”
And that’s actually the best part in all this. Aside from Stengel, this entire discussion presumes that, for all practical purposes, athletes can have sex pretty much whenever they want. Like, Ovechkin just has women waiting to have sex with him before and after every game? Apparently.
And so we arrive at a few separate conclusions here.
- Physically, sex probably doesn’t change anything for athletes.
- Let’s hope these debates continue, though, because it’s always entertaining to hear old people talk about young people have sex.
- Physical implications aside, athletes probably shouldn’t have sex before games.
- Why? Because screw them! They already have way more sex than the rest of us.
Leave it to average joes like me, you, and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
(Err.. Maybe he’s not “average.” That guy’s clearly into some freaking stuff.)
See More:
