Posted on 02/08/2006 10:07:57 AM PST by presidio9
In the months leading up to the Olympic games around 444 B.C., Ikkos of Tarentum, a legendary Pentathlon champion, began routine preparations for competition. He consumed large quantities of wild boar, cheese and goat meat. He hit the gymnasium to practice javelin throwing and long jumps. He coated himself in olive oil to make his rippled body gleam.
But there was one thing that made Ikkos's training regimen, which Plato described in a dialogue around 347 B.C., particularly noteworthy: He gave up sex. Ikkos, who went on to win the Olympic Pentathlon, believed that abstinence before competition was essential for preserving athletic vigor.
Twenty-five centuries later, Ikkos's theory still is widely held by athletes. In preparation for Turin, Chad Hedrick, an American speedskater competing in five events, said he planned to avoid sex for at least two weeks before the Olympics in an effort to conserve strength and adrenaline.
Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukhov, a married ice dancing pair on the U.S. Olympic figure skating team will be "saving their energy for the ice" in Turin, according to Ms. Gregory, who says the couple routinely maintains abstinence during periods of competition. Victor Plata, a member of U.S. Olympic triathlon team, who ranked as high as 4th in the world last year, says he went 233 days without sex before the 2004 Athens Olympics. "I was completely monastic," Mr. Plata says.
Some say the theory that sex before competition is risky is simply an urban legend propagated by coaches who are eager to make sure rowdy young athletes get enough sleep. Casey Stengel, famed former manager of the New York Yankees, once observed: "Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional baseball player. It's staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in."
Canadian swim
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Hey, I slaughtered a goat in my backyard just last night. Mighty tasty treat.
Funny though, I got up this morning and had this tremendous urge to run out of the house and toss a javelin at the Metro! Hmmm.
Which metro? John Edwards or Jean Francoise Querrie?
Reminds me of a Seinfeld episode.
Don't pick on Mary Pierce !!
Wilt Chamberlain got a hummer before he went on to score 100 points that night
This is BS. My wife has had me on this same program for months and I'm no fitter now then I was then.
Oops. Should have been more specific. Metrorail. "Please stand clear of the doors...Please stand clear of the doors...thank you...thank you." Ugh.
Ahhhh, married life!
I'm married.
No sex for just two weeks?!?!?!
Shoot. With the amount of strength and adrenaline I must have stored up, I should be able to run a record marathon.
I heard that Rocky Marciano used to get a oral favor to calm him down before a big fight. That one sounds like an urban legend.
Please let us know when its a "REGISTER ONLY" web site.
OK? Thanks.
Coach always told us to be in bed by 10. Never once told us what time we should get up and go home.
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