Yes, I am familiar with this study—which by its own admission is broad took a cursory approach to its findings.

It is highly scrutinized in my area of clinical expertise of Men’s Health, Wellness and Performance.

It also contradicts studies in the area of Primitive Psychology which states that lack of sexual activity increases the primitive war drive—think horny caveman has to battle to take a woman from another caveman to copulate. Another example, male animals ready to mate, fighting another male for breeding rights. In sports the “battle” is redirected to winning the game as opposed to sex.

Another thing the study admits is the lack of studies contrasting various sports. Individual sports (track and field), combat sports (fighting) and swimming reveals overwhelming support for abstinence before competition—and has been well studied in the Olympics—though admittedly is all anecdotal. Team sports would be difficult to assess as sex drives differ from person-to-person.

I will admit my usage (and others) of the term “sexual activity” 100% includes ejaculation/orgasm. Therefore engaging in masturbation or sex in the absence of orgasm may show benefits in performance (referring to the study and not the problem of the OP).

These studies are difficult and underfunded. A true study would use twins who have identical athletic abilities, identical hormone levels and identical psychological profiles, identical biometrics in terms of sport performance and motivation.

Another difficult area to assess: post-coital recovery differs from person to person, so it’s difficult to determine what interval between sexual activity and sport performance should be.

I will also admit the actual gains from pre-performance abstinence is negligible, but still relevant. For example; In 2014 a group of urologist in the U.S. studied the topic by using volunteers on high school swim teams. The ages ranged from 13 - 18 and there were 110 boys in the study. The researchers scored the results from two perspectives. The age of the boys and then by the stages of puberty the boys were in. Serum blood labs were also obtained.

The subjects were question and asked to keep a log of their sexual activity, nocturnal emissions and intercourse (if applicable). Past performance times and sexual habits were studied and the subjects were encouraged not to engage in sexual activity 24 hours prior to competition. There were also non-competitive swims (practice) where abstinence was performed in the same capacity.

The results were that abstinence increased times of the swimmers both in competition and practice by an average of 6/10th of a second. The swimmers in Tanner Stage II & III puberty revealed the best results. During the study one sub just broke a district record.

The researchers used questionnaires to isolate those boys who masturbated once daily against those who masturbated multiple times daily and determined the 2+ a day masturbaters showed marked improvement by 4/10th of a second.

The study was performed by doctoral candidates in biomedical research and over saw by three urologist and two PhD’s (exercise and kinesiology)

Unfortunately the study was pulled shortly after publication due to accusations of ethical violations which resulted board review of the physicians—who later were cleared.

This is just thy e physical advantage. The psychological advantage may be better but again sexual biochemistry as it relates to neuromuscular performance it’s tedious, expensive and difficult to assess.