It’s an old belief. Sex the night before competition will be detrimental to your performance as abstaining from sex will increase aggression, testosterone and muscle strength [1]. Furthermore, it has been lead to believe that sex increases excess energy expenditure resulting in decreased athletic performance the following day even though energy expenditure of sexual activity remains low ([2] as cited in [1]). How low? According to Frauman et al., [3], sexual intercourse expends generally only an average of 25 calories. To put this in perspective, 25 calories represents walking up two flights of stairs (maybe depending what your freaky self is in to?) However, is there any truth to the above statements where sexual activity leads to decreases in performance? A brand new systematic review by Stefani et al., [1] looks at the current research underpinning the science behind having sex before competition.

Study Inclusion Criteria

The papers selected for this review had a strict criteria. The subjects had to be competitive athletes where an intervention of sexual activity before a competition had to be performed where the outcome included the impact of sexual activity on performance. Furthermore, studies comparing athletes reporting having sexual activity versus athletes not having sexual intercourse before a competition were also included in this review. Of the 142 studies found through the authors’ keyword search, only 9 studies matched the inclusion criteria and were included in this review.

What The Authors Found

Muscle Strength

Sexual intercourse has no influence on muscle strength [4] Similarly, McGlone et al., [5] observed hand grip strength is not affected by sexual activity the night before the grip strength test.

Aerobic Performance

Sexual intercourse does not negatively impact aerobic performance on the maximal treadmill test when it takes place at least 10 hours before competition [6]. However, this study used a sedentary population. Sztajzel et al., [7] looked at high level male athletes and found data to support the potential beneficial effect of sexual activity on cycle erg performance. However, a potential negative effect occurs if there is an interval of less than 2 hours between sexual intercourse and cycle erg performance due to higher post-test heart rate values.

Testosterone

Henegevoss et al., [8] reports sexual activity does not affect testosterone levels in the short or long term. Contrary to this, Dabbs et al., [9] found testosterone levels increased across the evenings when couples engaged in sexual intercourse and decreased when they did not.

Sporting Performance

There is no evidence of direct negative impact of sexual intercourse on sports performance [5, 10]. Sexual activity has also been found to have no effect on physiological (heart rate, blood pressure), sport specific (all out test, upper and lower limb strength, reaction time, hamstring flexibility), and biochemical variables (testosterone, cortisol) [11].

Conclusion

From this review, it has been presented there are no negative effect of sexual activity before competition. However, sexual activity should ideally occur at least 10 hours before competition based on the research presented above. If there is one thing to take away from this article it is this: “Sexual activity has a relaxing effect, and the frustration to limit one’s own sexual desire is probably more detrimental than to actually engage in sexual activity.” [1] There seems to be a general positive impact from sexual activity before competition due to the relaxing effect. According to the authors of this review, this may help relieve competition stress in endurance or concentration sports. Furthermore, the current literature does not support the belief that you should abstain from sexual activity before competition.