We're going to figure out if masturbation has a negative impact on strength in specifically the male population and we're going to start right now. What's up everybody it's Dave Miller from garagestrength.com and if this is your first time to the channel and you're interested in becoming a freak athlete you want to get stronger you want to be more explosive and you want to run faster make sure you like you subscribe and you ring that notification bell so that we can help you become a champion so for the last decade we've worked with high level athletes in multiple different sports we've had power five football players come out of our gym we've had world championship medalists in olympic weightlifting and in freestyle wrestling and we've had multiple throwers make the world championships and the olympics in discus and shot put and a lot of these males specifically have something in common. They're very very aggressive. They're very very sexually driven and a lot of these individuals a lot of these elite athletes have asked us questions over the years of whether or not sex or Masturbation has a negative impact on their power output.
Does it have a negative impact on their sports performance? And this is a topic that hasn't really been covered too much In science or even in the realm of high-performance sport. So let's dive right into what happens when males achieve an orgasm. So we've got to recognize and we've got to understand what happens from a hormonal response, okay? So we know that after a three-week period of...
abstinence. We know that seeing the studies that Zavorsky has put out recently that when there's a period of abstinence, a shorter period of abstinence from sex or from masturbation, there's a slight increase in testosterone. Very slight, but enough that it's notable. We also know that when an orgasm is achieved by a male, whether it's through masturbation or through sexual activity, there is almost zero impact on testosterone levels.
And so we recognize immediately that testosterone has a significant impact on testosterone levels. has almost no response correlated to orgasms. So testosterone is going to actually have a slight impact on sexual desire and those with higher levels of testosterone might have more of a sexual desire, but when they're achieving orgasm, they will not have a negative impact. They will not feel a negative impact that's correlated to lower levels of testosterone. And we know that testosterone is very important for lean muscle mass.
We know it's very important for the way our brain functions. We know it's know it's very important for bone density. We know it has a huge impact on physical performance, on sports performance. Now we also know from a hormonal response that when you have an orgasm, when a male has an orgasm, there's typically a time frame where they have this euphoric response.
They orgasm and for five to ten minutes the the male individual is in this state of euphoria. And that's why males love having sex. That's why males love to orgasm, right? That's, that's part of the gig.
And a lot of that, that euphoric response is stimulated by very high levels of prolactin. Okay. So prolactin for about 10 to 20 minutes will be very high. And then it starts to drop around 15 to 20 minutes. And when pro lactic is high when it's heightened it it destroys sexual desire which makes it very difficult to orgasm multiple times in a row unless there's some type of disorder so it's very hard for an individual to masturbate multiple times within an hour or two hours.
So we know that that's related to directly prolactin. We also understand that when prolactin increases, dopamine is decreasing. So dopamine is correlated tremendously with sexual desire. So sexual desire is stimulated by dopamine and also from catecholamine levels, okay? So...
So if we can think about as you're starting to have that sexual urge and you're, you, you either want to masturbate or you want to go have participate in sexual activity, your heart rate will start to increase. When your heart rate starts to increase, that's when our catecholamine levels will start to increase. Start to increase so our noradrenaline and our adrenaline will increase now our dopamine starts to increase as well then we participate or in sexual activity or we masturbate and When you have that orgasm?
The response from a hormonal aspect is a dramatic increase in prolactin that diminishes your sexual desire. Then you recover after that 15 to 20 minute euphoric period. And then you resume. zoom the rest of your day essentially is what happens.
So we understand what the hormonal response is directly related to masturbation and orgasms specifically. So the question remains, does masturbation have a negative impact on physical performance? This is a little bit of a gray area response, but the response would be if you were to masturbate directly within, you know, 30 minutes to 60 minutes, prior to physical resistance training or physical activity, you likely will experience a slight dip in your training or in your activity, whatever it is that you would be doing. you would be participating in because you will still be coming down from that, those higher levels of prolactin.
You'll have lower levels of dopamine and lower levels of the catecholamine and your heart rate will have been elevated for a long period of time. So there's going to be about an hour to two hour recovery period. So in a very acute setting where it's a direct 30 to 90 minute time frame after masturbation, you will see a negative impact. on your physical performance, on your physical strength levels, on your resistance training.
Now, if we're outside that three to five hour window, there won't be a negative impact on performance. And if this is something that happens once a day or once every two days, there's never going to be a chronic negative impact caused by masturbation and caused by orgasm. Instead, what we know that happens from a hormonal response. with orgasms just has to be taken into account when we're dealing with a very short time frame ideally 30 to 90 minutes avoid resistance training after masturbation we know what happens from a hormonal response when an orgasm is achieved we know that for about 30 to 90 minutes we should avoid any type of physical activity or strenuous activity or a competition and instead we should try to remain outside a three to five hour window to avoid that increase in prolactin and that decrease in dopamine.
And ultimately, try to even avoid doing it on the same day as a competition or as your strength training or wait to do it until after you're done strength training. So if you want more information about sex and what sexual activity can do on your physical performance, you can click on this video right here. Until next time, guys.
Peace.