Some World Cup Teams Ban Sex Before Games, Even Though Science Says It May Help Performance on the Field

The only action players on Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile and Mexico's World Cup soccer teams are getting is on the field (unless they're breaking team rules). According to Time, these four teams have rules that ban pre-game sex.  Others have specific guidelines. Time:

...the rules are complicated on these teams: France (you can have sex but not all night), Brazil (you can have sex, but not “acrobatic” sex), Costa Rica (can’t have sex until the second round) and Nigeria (can sleep with wives but not girlfriends)

Coaches think that sex is a distracting or that it might somehow detract from their player's stamina during a game. Sex, in fact, might help the players' game-day performance, Time points out. Men's testosterone levels increase after they have sex, and for an athlete who's gone months without, "sex may actually increase performance by releasing testosterone into the body," Times writes. And it usually only burns 50 calories or less.

As the amount of extracurricular activity at recent Olympics shows, athletes seems to appreciate looser reins—and take advantage of them. At Sochi, officials made sure to have 100,000 condoms on hand at the Olympic Village, and athletes took advantage of Tinder, the "hook-up app," to have a look at who was available—at the very least.

Rachel Nuwer | | READ MORE

Rachel Nuwer is a freelance science writer based in Brooklyn.