CAN PORN IMPROVE YOUR WORKOUT?

Can watching porn improve your workout? Watching porn before hitting the gym can raise your testosterone level, leading to better results in the gym, but it can also affect you negatively if you get addicted to it.

Watching porn before a workout can lead to a spike in testosterone, leading to better results at the gym. More testosterone means more aggression, endurance, and strength. Undertaking sexual activity before exercise could help athletic performance rather than hinder it. Porn has become more popular in the last decade as the internet has made it easy to access adult material. Below are some ways porn affects people who work out, including relieving stress and increasing testosterone.

Relieving Stress

Working out can be a stressful experience. There is much pressure on people who work out to achieve their potential, and most athletes use performance-enhancing drugs. Not all people who work out can turn to medication or alternative strategies. Many coaches ban sexual activities before important matches as they believe abstinence helps an athlete focus. However, abstaining from sex can cause stress.

According to Mahanty et al. (2021), watching porn before working out can help counter the effects of stress. The body is flooded will feel-good hormones that act as an antidote to stress since watching porn leads to an orgasm. Athletes who use porn to keep calm or relax report being less stressed. Watching porn before a workout session keeps one in a better mood which is helpful for everyone.

Increased Testosterone

Tarrant (2016) discovered that when athletes watch porn before working out, they have higher testosterone levels in their blood. Testosterone is linked to better performance in sports. Athletes with more testosterone in their bodies are stronger and have better endurance. This is why testosterone is included in illegal and legal performance-enhancing supplements.

A scientific study focused on weightlifters. They were shown clips of porn and those who watched porn improved their performance, which was linked to higher testosterone levels, as Denham (2008) discovered.

Abstaining from sex leads to better performance is not proven, although it is not entirely true. The longer an athlete abstains from sex, the lower their testosterone levels are, and it's not a good thing in the sporting world.

When Porn Is Bad For Athletes

There are some scenarios when watching porn before training or working out is bad. Porn can be good for athletes, but when an athlete is addicted to porn and unable to control their use, it can lead to poor performance due to excessive fatigue. Excess masturbation can also cause friction injuries, a problem in some sports as Patton (2004) revealed.

How Porn Can Interfere With Muscle Growth

Porn eventually leads to masturbation in most cases. Masturbation will probably not affect your testosterone levels, but it can interfere with muscle growth in some ways. Masturbating immediately before a workout could decrease your performance. According to Yeh et al. (2008), your body releases prolactin, which suppresses dopamine levels after orgasm. Dopamine supports your libido, mood, and motivation, and a drop in dopamine is partly why you feel tired and sluggish after an orgasm. It takes about twenty minutes for prolactin levels to start declining and up to several hours to return to a normal level. Deaner et al. (2012) observed high-level athletes see how the timing of sex after watching porn affected their workout sessions. The study above also concluded that so long as athletes separated sex and intense workouts by at least two to three hours, there was no evidence of a negative impact on males and females.

You can watch porn close to your workouts without noticing the negative effects of doing easier workouts. Another reason people think watching porn affects working out is how these activities can disrupt sleep. Most people stay up late to watch porn, which obviously can affect your performance in the gym. Losing hours of sleep while going through porn websites hinders progress. However, if you choose to watch porn, ensure you don't let it interfere with your sleep habits.

Why Porn Doesn't Hurt Muscle Growth

Watching porn often leads to masturbation or intercourse if you have a partner. Masturbation and sex may reduce average testosterone levels. Usually, testosterone levels rise during masturbation and sex and decline to normal levels afterward. Hence, masturbation does not decrease testosterone, but it causes a short-term bump in testosterone levels that disappears shortly afterward. This short-term flow of testosterone is too small to affect average testosterone levels throughout the day.

Regular orgasms may positively impact testosterone levels. For instance, people who abstained from sex for three months due to ED had a decrease in testosterone levels, and their testosterone rose again after they start having sex again. In addition, if porn did affect testosterone levels, it still wouldn't decrease muscle growth because it turns out that although large changes in testosterone levels can impact muscle growth, small fluctuations within the normal physiological range do not affect muscle growth. You won't notice any difference in your ability to build muscle if the levels of your testosterone are normal, and you increase and decrease them above or below normal for some hours.

Conclusion

Although you'll often hear people say porn affects your workout, there's more or less no evidence this is true. A handful of studies have shown that abstaining from watching porn for a few weeks can increase testosterone levels, but the increase usually tends to be small and short-lived. There's reason to question the results of these studies due to methodological flaws. Most studies show that testosterone levels rise during masturbation while watching porn and fall back to normal after orgasm. Still, the change is too small to have a meaningful impact on testosterone levels. This wouldn't impact your workout even if masturbation increases and decreases testosterone levels slightly. Athletes are advised to watch porn videos to raise their testosterone levels to increase their energy. Consider watching porn to reduce stress and anxieties. However, porn is not good if a person is addicted to it.

References

Mahanty, C., Kumar, R., & Mishra, B. K. (2021). Analyses The Effects Of COVID-19 Outbreak On Human Sexual Behavior Using Ordinary Least-Squares Based Multivariate Logistic Regression. Quality & Quantity, 55(4), 1239-1259.

Patton, N. (2004). Self-Inflicted Eye Injuries: A Review. Eye, 18(9), 867-872.

Tarrant, S. (2016). The Pornography Industry: What Everyone Needs To Know. Oxford University Press.

Yeh, K. Y., Pu, H. F., Kaphle, K., Lin, S. F., Wu, L. S., Lin, J. H., & Tsai, Y. F. (2008). Ginkgo Biloba Extract Enhances Male Copulatory Behavior And Reduces Serum Prolactin Levels In Rats. Hormones And Behavior, 53(1), 225-231.