Sex and The Super Footballer

If World Cup sportscasters snicker when they suggest a tiring player did not have "enough days off," here's why: two researchers in Israel have studied 36 male Israeli football players and have established the optimum period of sexual abstinence for peak athletic performance. Complicating life for coaches, athletes and their partners, the interlude varies with a player's position on the field. Forwards, who expend extra energy and aggression, should refrain from sexual activity for six to eight days before a game. Defenders and goalies, who require less physical energy on the playing field, need only curtail bedroom sports three to five days before the kickoff. Alexander Olshanyetsky and Mordechai Halperin of the Jerusalem Center for Impotence and Infertility plan to expand their research to include more players and other sports. But no telling when they will turn to the question on the minds of players' wives: What is the optimum period of abstinence from football for peak sexual performance?