The science behind sex bans: why stopping WAGs from visiting the England team could really boost their Euro 2024 chances

All athletes have their rituals in the run-up to a big race: for some it’s wearing lucky shorts, for others it’s a special race-day breakfast.

For footballers, it can include a ban on sex – usually an edict from the team’s manager, on the basis that otherwise their players’ stamina and focus will suffer.

At the 1998 World Cup in France, then England manager Glenn Hoddle banned players from having sexual intercourse during the tournament. Yet they were eliminated in the second round.

At the 2014 World Cup, teams from Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile and Mexico were all told to abstain 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 women, no girlfriends for the Nigerians.

WAGs Megan Davison, wife of Jordan Pickford, Annie Kilner, wife of Kyle Walker, and Rebekah Vardy, wife of Jamie, at the 2018 World Cup

After all, it was the free German team that took first place.

Outside of football, it was reported this year that five-time Masters winner Tiger Woods had stopped having sex ahead of this year’s golf tournament. He lost.

In fact, some of football’s biggest names have stated that they believe having sex the night before actually helps improve their performance, from Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo to Brazilian legend Pele and Manchester United icon George Best.

So as Britain heads towards the euro – which starts in Germany next week – what does the science say about the usefulness of sex bans, and is this something Gareth Southgate should consider introducing?

Although it is much talked about, “there is a lack of good scientific research in this area,” says Rob Madden, a sports performance coach and physiotherapist who works with boxer Anthony Joshua and Formula 1.

‘And you understand why: it is a difficult metric to measure. What kind of sex? With whom? How long before exercising? Do you measure athletic results or biological markers, such as hormones? It’s complicated.

“Almost all recent research suggests it doesn’t have a huge impact anyway.”

There’s one outlier: A small study published last year in The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness was the first to look at fitness in real competition rather than in the lab, and showed that intercourse the night before a competition can indeed negatively impact player performance.

Researchers enrolled 14 male players from a team in the Israeli football league and assessed their performance using GPS data of their movements in 88 football matches.

This was combined with telephone interviews after each match asking whether each player had indulged in sexual activity the night before.

The team of psychologists and physicians found that the average speed during a race was lower if the participants had sexual intercourse before the race (a decrease of 0.5 km/h, from 6.5 to 6).

Interestingly, in 10.2 percent of cases they only reported sexual intercourse the night before a match – suggesting this was a rarity among players anyway, despite almost 80 percent of men being in a relationship.

But ‘it is difficult to draw decent conclusions from such a small study in itself, but it is an interesting addition to the conversation,’ says Rob. ‘There are many possible reasons for this result; fatigue from a late night is one.

‘But in the future it would be interesting to see clubs and their scientific teams look at these matters in more detail (if they were planning to introduce a sex ban).

‘For now, it’s fair to say that athletes should be able to test the impact sex has on their personal performance and whether this is a factor they should take into account.’

Meanwhile, the majority of research into the relationship between sports performance and sex suggests there isn’t a strong link anyway.

Manager Glenn Hoddle in training with the England team during the 1998 World Cup

A 2022 review of available research by the University of California-Davis in the US, which analyzed nine studies involving 133 participants (all but one male), noted that no study examined the impact of sexual activity on actual competition (that is, how well they perform during a competition), 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 were significantly affected by sexual activity of any kind or duration between 30 minutes and 24 hours before the assessment.

‘The evidence for limiting pre-exercise sex is poor, but it is emerging among professionals,’ says sports performance psychologist Sally McGinn, who works with the British Paralympic badminton team and rugby players. “I think it’s a bit old-fashioned, as the research on it doesn’t really hold up.” So if science isn’t convincingly on its side, why has this idea stuck around for so long?

“Sometimes old wives’ tales just live on,” says Rob. “If a coach or other athlete tells you just as you’re starting your professional career that sex will make you perform worse, that message will often stick with you for the rest of your career.”

Going against it can have a bad impact psychologically by making the athlete doubt their abilities, Sally suggests. More importantly, she says, the intention behind a sex ban can make it effective: focus and team bonding.

“What it taps into, and what does matter, is that when a team is working toward a climax, they want to minimize and manage any distractions and focus on bonding as a team,” she says. “Whether it’s having sex or going on a weekend getaway, an athlete must ask themselves, ‘Am I fully prepared to perform at the level I am expected to perform at, and will this activity contribute or detract from my ability to perform? perform at that level?’ ‘

Despite the team element, both experts suggest that whether sex is likely to help or hinder sports performance depends largely on the individual.

Sally says: ‘For some athletes, stopping sex (having sex) can take them out of their routine and what is normal for them, and make them feel a little strange or tense. For others, having sex late at night can affect their sleep quality and in turn their behavior and the way they connect with their teammates because they are cranky and tired.”

This ties in with what Rob believes is the most important factor in the run-up to a major sporting event: rest and recovery.

As for the idea that sex itself takes away from an athlete’s energy, this is unfounded. Estimates put energy expenditure during intercourse between 25 and a maximum of 100 calories, “which is not a lot for an elite athlete,” he says. (For context, you can burn 25 calories by climbing the stairs a few times and 100 by taking a 15-minute walk around the block.)

But what about the old idea 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 areas of the brain involved in aggressive behavior (in addition to sexual arousal).

In fact, scientific evidence suggests that sexual stimuli temporarily increase testosterone levels in both men and women, but also reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol and release ‘positive’ calming hormones such as oxytocin.

Rob says: ‘A week or even a day before an event, an athlete needs to be in top shape. At that point, there is very little we can do to improve your running speed or build up your fitness.

‘That time is about making sure you are as well rested as possible. So having sex can be a positive part of your recovery as it can reduce stress hormones, calm anxiety and even be meditative as it is something that requires your mind to be very ‘in the moment’.”

A study published last year by the Journal of Sleep Research found that men and women found that sex that culminated in an orgasm improved sleep quality.

Other studies have shown that people who didn’t have sex experienced higher stress levels ahead of big moments like a public speech, compared to those who had sex in the fourteen days before the engagement.

‘But if you share a bed after sex with someone who doesn’t have the same temperature requirements for sleep, or who tosses and turns, it can have the opposite effect,’ says Rob.

So to really be ready for the match, sex may not be on the agenda, but it’s best to retreat to the guest room afterwards for a good night’s sleep.

This might suit footballers better than a sex ban, or it risks leaving some irritated WAGS in their wake!