Abstinence and the athlete

For years, it was an accepted part of professional sports that athletes were expected to abstain from sex before games or events.

Muhammad Ali, apparently, practised abstinence for six weeks before a fight.

It’s an idea that went out of vogue, more or less, with studies showing abstinence could actually harm sporting performance, as it lowers testosterone levels.

Perhaps that’s the reason 100,000 condoms were given out in the Olympic Village in Vancouver for the recent winter Olympics.

If anything, it’s after an event where abstaining would make more sense to me.

Yesterday I got up from my desk chair at the end of my shift and the inside of my knees twinged.

That’s not a place I’ve ever experienced muscle pain before. The back and front of my knees, yes, but not the sides. Clearly, my 10-hour hill extravaganza training walk of Saturday was returning to haunt me.

It’s not a bad thing. Unless I’m experiencing considerable pain, I quite like the ache of overused muscles – it feels like my training counted. If I don’t have any aches and pains after a race, I think I haven’t pushed hard enough.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d have to think sex after a big event could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, so to speak.

When I did the inaugural Rotorua half ironman at the end of 2006, the race organiser took a novel approach to prizegiving. He offered a prize to any couple who had both competed in the race, then gone home and celebrated with a wee bit of horizontal action.

There was only one couple who had. (Or was prepared to admit they had.) I was a little surprised there was anyone. It’s never been the first thing on my mind after swimming 2km, cycling 90km and running 21km and I can’t imagine it would enter anyone’s head after a full ironman. Staying upright is enough of a challenge after an ironman and most competitors spend the next couple of days looking like cowboys who have been on their horses for too long as it is.

However, according to an article in the National Geographic, I would be wrong in my approach.

"Sexual activity could actually help combat muscle pain or other sports injuries in women, according to Barry Komisaruk, a psychology professor at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey.

"His studies have found that sexual stimulation in women produces a powerful pain-blocking effect. The effect, he says, can last for up to a day in the case of chronic pain such as muscle pain."

There’s no mention of sex having the same beneficial effect on men, so perhaps female athletes are better off with a non-competing partner to hold their handbags on the sidelines.

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