About doping – with love

Sex as a safe doping
Scientific research does not support trainers
in an effort to protect athletes from sexNika Kotova, "Newspaper.

Ru»

Is sport useful or harmful for sex and sex for sports? "Newspaper.Ru" understood what the scientific research conducted on this topic shows.

(Almost every provision here is confirmed by references. If you want, look for them in the original article – VM.)

Athletes with their athletic bodies look sexy – both men and women. And what about their sexuality from a physiological point of view? Let's take the men first.

The main male sex hormone testosterone is responsible for almost all male traits in both appearance and behavior; it also determines sexual potency. And almost all of these features are in demand in sports.

High growth, pumped–up muscles, physical strength - all this is testosterone. At the same time, a high level of testosterone determines a high level of aggression. And sport is just such a human activity that is impossible without aggression: you need to fight for victory. That is, in men, high athletic qualities can be accompanied by high sexual potency. Good athletes may well be good lovers.

For high-quality sex, you need a good work of the cardiovascular system, a problem-free blood flow to the genital organ, and this is all training. Physical education, which trains the heart, muscles and breathing, improves potency. But this is not the case with big sports: excessive training, especially in anaerobic sports, reduces potency over time.

Women are even more difficult. Their testosterone level (as it is known, it is also produced in the female body) also has a positive effect on their athletic qualities, and also favors sexual sensations. But too high testosterone levels affect the appearance, and too courageous women who achieve success in weightlifting or shot put are not liked by all men. And it is no coincidence that in some sports there are many women who practice same-sex contacts. Moreover, recently in some sports athletes are tested for the fact that they are genetically female. For example, the Indian runner Pinky Pramanik was recognized by the medical commission as a man, and then accused of rape.

There is a lot of debate about whether sexual contacts are useful for sports, or it is better to protect athletes from them, especially before responsible competitions. Most coaches adhere to the second point of view. For example, in football, some sports clubs allow football players to take their wives with them for pre-season training camps, but during the World and European Championships, the head coaches of the national teams set a strict condition: wives and girlfriends must live separately.

The reasoning behind this approach is that, firstly, a lot of effort is spent on sex and they may not be enough at the crucial moment, and secondly, competitions require full dedication and concentration from the athlete.

Thirdly, it is believed that after having sex, testosterone levels in the body decrease, and when abstinence, on the contrary, increases. This point of view was held, for example, by the great boxer Muhammad Ali, who said: "By abstaining from sex for a while, you become a great warrior." He refused to have sex six weeks before the decisive fight. And the vice-champion in middle-distance running, Marty Licuori, said: "Sex makes you happy, and happy people don't run five kilometers."

However, when scientists began to objectively investigate the effect of sex on physical fitness, this point of view was not confirmed. For example, it turned out that the strength of the hand measured in athletes in the morning did not depend on whether they had sex in the evening or abstained from it for six days.

In another American study, the subjects were not athletes, but ordinary men. In the experiment, they performed physical work 12 hours after sex or without it. It turned out that sex prior to work had no effect on myocardial oxygen consumption and other endurance indicators.

Swiss scientists studied athletes who performed a test on a bicycle ergometer with ECG registration and gradually increasing load, as well as a load test with simultaneous control of mental concentration. The results showed that ten hours after sexual intercourse, all parameters return to normal. This suggests that sex the night before the competition should not affect the results.

In the same work, the hypothesis of a decrease in testosterone levels after sexual contact was not confirmed. The authors showed that its level does not change after sex in any way.

But after prolonged abstinence, testosterone levels decrease, which does not help to improve athletic performance in any way. This issue has been studied in more detail by Chinese experts. According to their data, the testosterone level does not change during six days of abstinence, then increases sharply, and then falls.

There is also data on the effect of sex on women's fitness.

American psychologists have found that the female orgasm is a very strong painkiller. This effect can help athletes overcome muscle pain and fatigue, and its effect lasts at least a day. And according to the Russian sports medicine specialist Veniamin Zhitlovsky, orgasm for female athletes can be a form of doping, completely legal and safe.

According to his own data (Zhitlovsky V.E. Sexual behavior of athletes in the preparatory period. Selected lectures on sports medicine. Volume 2: educational edition. Moscow: RASMIRBI. 2008), 50% of male athletes and 40% of women believe that sex on the eve of the competition relieves tension, distracts from emotions and improves sleep. Although he still does not recommend it to men.

The impact of sex can be very different depending on whether it is contact with a regular partner or the search for sexual pleasures in questionable places. In the latter case, if an athlete goes in search of adventures instead of a full sleep, of course, in the morning you should not expect good results from him.

And certainly sex can worsen sports results if you do it a couple of hours before training. As Swiss researchers have shown, in this case, athletes' pulse is restored more slowly, endurance decreases. Therefore, morning sex before the competition will not lead to anything good.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru14.02.2014