Your workouts might be helping you build strength and stamina, but when it comes to supporting a healthy sex drive, more isn’t always better. In fact, one of the lesser-known signs of overtraining is a noticeable dip in libido.
As it turns out, there’s a sweet spot when it comes to how much exercise actually supports a healthy sex drive, according to men’s health expert and board-certified specialist in sports dietetics Kylene Bogden, M.S., R.D.N., C.S.S.D., co-founder of FWDfuel.com and Cleveland Cavaliers Performance Dietitian. The ‘right’ amount of exercise can boost libido by increasing key hormones like testosterone and endorphins, improving blood flow, reducing stress, and enhancing body confidence, she says. But too much exercise, combined with too little post-workout recovery, can throw those same hormones out of whack and cause a drop in desire.
Ahead, experts explain why exercise is an important ingredient in sexual function—and why missing the early signs of overtraining might be sabotaging your sex drive.
- ABOUT OUR EXPERTS: Kylene Bogden, M.S., R.D.N., C.S.S.D., is the co-founder of FWDfuel.com and a Cleveland Cavaliers Performance Dietitian. Rufus Spann, Ph.D., is an AASECT-certified sex therapist and the founder of Libido Health.
How Exercise Can Support Your Libido
The vast majority of individuals will experience a boost in libido alongside their exercise effort, including the approximately 75 percent of American adults who do not currently meet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines of 150 minutes of aerobic activity and two strength sessions per week. One 2018 review published in Sexual Medicine Reviews reported a positive relationship between exercise and sexual function in women, while another review found a similar result in men.
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There are plenty of reasons why regular movement gives your sex drive a lift. For starters, exercise can support healthy levels of testosterone—a key hormone that influences libido in both men and women. In fact, low desire and erectile dysfunction can be symptoms of low testosterone. Both resistance and endurance training have been shown to boost testosterone. And research has shown that those who exercise have higher testosterone levels compared to those who are sedentary. “Exercise also supports better sleep and metabolic health, both of which are crucial for hormone balance,” says Bogden.
Another big benefit? Better blood flow. “Exercise strengthens the heart muscle and improves the elasticity of blood vessels,” says Bogden. “It also helps lower blood pressure and supports overall vascular health.” In men, this is vital because strong blood flow aids in erectile function, she explains. Meanwhile, in women blood flow to your bits is an essential part of the arousal process.
“Certain exercises—including squats, hip thrusts, and lunges—can also strengthen pelvic floor muscles, which are crucial for sexual pleasure,” says AASECT-certified sex therapist Rufus Spann, Ph.D., founder of Libido Health. While much of the noise surrounding pelvic floor care centers on women, everyone has a hammock of muscles that run from hip to hip and pubic bone to tailbone. These muscles have multiple jobs, including aiding in structural support, contributing to excretory control, and supporting sexual response. More specifically, these muscles have been shown to contribute to erectile function, ejaculatory control, and orgasm ability and intensity.
“Perhaps most important in the world of libido and attraction is that exercise can support body image and confidence,” says Bogden. Not only does it change your appearance in ways that may be favorable, she says, “but gaining physical strength fosters a sense of accomplishment and self-worth.” Given that it’s hard to enjoy sex when you don’t feel proud of your own naked body, it’s not surprising that when people feel stronger and more confident in their bodies, their interest in intimacy may increase too.
Tilting Over The Training-Libido Tightrope
While exercise can support a healthy sex life, too much of it can have the opposite effect. Enter: Overtraining Syndrome.
“Overtraining Syndrome is a condition that occurs when an individual trains excessively without adequate rest and calorie intake,” says Bogden. In the gym, overtraining can translate to diminished returns on investment, meaning worsened performance, she says. It can also lead to symptoms such as prolonged fatigue, mood disturbances, and hormonal imbalances—all of which can tank libido. Many of these symptoms—like extreme fatigue, disrupted sleep, and low motivation—are also key signs of overtraining that often go overlooked.
Read More: 6 Ways You’re Unintentionally Tanking Your Libido
Train too hard and your cortisol levels can climb and climb and climb, she explains. Because the entire endocrine system is interconnected, when your cortisol levels go up, your sex hormones become suppressed, she explains. The result: a noticeable dip in libido. “The resulting physical fatigue, poor sleep, and mental burnout associated with the disrupted hormonal balance further diminish sexual desire and drive,” she says. Compounding this fact is that it’s pretty tough to want to roll around in the hay when you’re feeling down on yourself or tired.
Longer Exercise, Lower Libido
Research suggests that endurance athletes may be particularly prone to overtraining-induced libido drops. One 2022 study published in the Journal of Endocrinological Science looked at how marathon training compares to general endurance training when it comes to sex drive in men. The researchers found that men training for marathons reported lower libido scores—by about 20 percent—compared to those doing more generalized endurance training. They also observed an inverse relationship between the amount of high-intensity training and sexual desire, meaning the more intense and prolonged the training, the lower the sex drive.
The authors suggested that this dip in libido could stem from a combination of factors—namely, chronic physical fatigue from high training volumes and “endocrinological adaptations,” such as suppressed testosterone, as a response to the physical stress of the training.
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Meanwhile, the researchers of a second study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise surveyed 1,000+ active men who ran, walked, biked, swam, or lifted. The men who trained the hardest and longest were much more likely to report low libido than anyone else. Further, they were seven times less likely to have a normal or high libido than the guys who reported training at lower intensities.
Notably, there hasn’t yet been research explicitly done on the impact of endurance sports on women’s libidos. This is likely partly because the number of men in endurance sports still exceeds the number of women. The fact that getting funding for sexuality-based topics, especially related to women, also plays a role. However, anecdotal reports suggest that women’s libidos also tank during endurance training.
How To Balance Your Training and Sex Drive
Good news for avid gymgoers: Maximizing your game in the bedroom and the gym is possible. How? By treating post-workout recovery like it’s as essential as the workout itself, says Bogden.
In practice, she says this means prioritizing recovery just as much as your workouts: Take two rest days per week, aim for seven to nine hours of quality sleep per night, and consider tools like sauna, massage, and breath work to help manage cortisol and support overall wellbeing.
Nutrition also plays a key role—eating enough to fuel match your training demands is essential for maintaining healthy hormone levels, she says. For added support, she suggests incorporating supplements like curcumin or tart cherry juice into your routine, which may help support recovery and keep you feeling your best between sessions.
You also need to cycle the intensity of your training, which is known as periodized training, says Bogden. “Mixing in deload weeks and varying intensity will give your nervous and endocrine systems time to rebound properly,” she says.
What To Do If You’re A Gym-Goer With Low Libido
If all of this sounds familiar, it’s important to note that libido fluctuates throughout life, meaning that bouts of low libido are normal. However, because libido fluctuates in response to inputs from our everyday life, it’s equally important to use a libido drop as encouragement to assess your overall well-being, Spann says. “As a sex therapist, I’ve found that addressing lifestyle factors like exercise quantity, high stress, and [poor] diet have a greater impact,” he says. In many instances, pulling back on training intensity and dialing in your sleep and nutrition will be enough to return your libido to its usual levels, especially if any of those things have recently changed.
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If there have been no discernible changes to your routine, Spann suggests consulting a doctor. Loss of libido can be caused by hormone imbalances (unrelated to overtraining), mental health issues like depression and anxiety, certain medications, and an underlying medical condition. “A doctor can effectively discuss the medical and physical aspects of a person’s health, which could be causing or contributing to lower libido,” he says. “It may also be worthwhile to seek guidance from a sex therapist or coach, as they are well-informed about sexual health and strategies for maintaining a healthy libido.”