After going fairly deep with high volume endurance sports for a couple of years there, experiencing the life of the “elite athlete” first hand, then doing a few years of research, I don’t recommend doing this type of training due to the negative health effects (a complete blog post or book in itself.)
For me, the vehicle was endurance sports at the time, but interestingly we are seeing the same thing reflected with CrossFit, weightlifting, other endurance sports and for many in “movement” and bodyweight training.
Now, one of my “Twelve Pillars” of fitness (I wrote about this a little bit around the confusion/over-emphasis on body composition, back in March [here]) is high libido or sex drive.
Vital energy.
Because sex drive is compromised when we are in a chronically stressed state (one of the first things to go), we see this a lot with high level athletes.
In 2017, Hackney et al did a study on Endurance Exercise Training and Male Libido, with ~1000 test subjects of healthy men.
“Exposure to higher levels of chronic intense and greater durations of endurance training on a regular basis is significantly associated with a decreased libido scores in men. Clinicians who treat male patients for sexual disorders and/or council couples on infertility issues should consider the degree of endurance exercise training a man is performing as a potential complicating factor.”
Endurance exercise is widely studied due to it’s popularity (running, triathlon), however, this same situation is taking place with many different forms of athletics, sports and practices.
I have heard first hand from many men in martial arts, CrossFit and “movement”/bodyweight training (who are training “multiple times per day” who are seeing a similar thing.
The attachment to the activity is so high that it is put down to being tired, or they are “committed” to their practice and thus not interested.
In reality, the physiology is chronically stressed and the hormonal system is reflecting this.
When the stress of work, our training or from environmental stimulus passes a threshold, then libido drops.
Energetically, as we operate more from fear and competition and less from love, of course it makes sense that we see these changes.
So, while physical “fitness” may be increasing in that sport for a lot of these athletes, overall adaptability and “fitness” in a truly broad time domain is decreasing.
For these guys (the same mechanism is in play with women), a re-prioritisation of what it means to be “fit” or healthy needs to take place before a reduction/moderation in training volume will ever occur.
