How long until your sperm count picks up again?

TheTalkingTurboTrainer

So I'm getting married in March next year and after giving this years Etape a miss, the guys and I are thinking of doing the 2009 event (we did 2007).

The girlfriend has just exercised her power of veto on this though and I'm not going to fight it in this case as we want to start a family after the wedding. It's a well documented fact that cycling lowers the sperm count, so unless i do a great job on the honeymoon in which case I can get back on the bike and train for the ride, I am not allowed to do it or indeed ride much at all.

My question is this. How long after stopping/cutting back on riding does it take for the sperm count to increase again? Should I be looking at putting the bike away in the new year and pound the pavement in a pair of running shoes instead so that by March I'm all locked and loaded? Or does it recover quicker than that and I could ride for a few more months?

Any sensible comments welcome. Smart a*s remarks not so much

Thanks in advance!

Alex_Simmons/RST

Some reading.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16944397
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9018515
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15162242

although I'm not sure if running is your answer.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8425638
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10593214

Richard891

From the abstract of one of the linked papers: "to date there is no evidence that endurance training causes male infertility"...

Err, mate I don't really think it is "a well documented fact that cycling lowers the sperm count", as you say. Could you please post a few links to said documentation? In fact this idea has been widely discreditied. Sure, an incorrectly fitted saddle putting pressure on your perineum could perhaps be a contributing factor to impotence, but that's not the same thing at all. Riding your bike is good for your health and having a healthy active lifestyle will benefit your fertility!

Plenty of cyclists I know have kids: get back on your bike and stop perpetuating myths...

TheTalkingTurboTrainer

Wow, someone's a little hostile.

Here's another quote from the links:

"We concluded that endurance cycling appears to be associated with a significant alteration in sperm morphology."

And if Zita West supports the view that it impacts the chances of getting pregnant then her 25 years of experience in that area of health is good enough for me.

I'd happily stay on the bike, but if it does have some form of impact then I'm happy to stay in the gym instead. Thanks for your concern on my healthy lifestyle though.

Feel free to post the 'widely discredited' links though.

Captain Fagor

If your girlfriend drinks coffee, I trust you shall be putting your foot down on that habit once she's "up the duff". [I understand there's a strong linkage between caffeine consumption and miscarriages, in case you're wondering what I'm on about].

woodford2barbican

The fertility Dr the wife and I went to see said that 10 hours a day of cycling might have an affect on fertility.

schlepcycling

Well Chris Boardman has 5 children and Bradley Wiggins has 2 and there are many many pro cyclists with children and they all train much much more than you are going to do for the Etape. If I were you I'd stop worrying about it and just ride your bike, I did and I have 2 children

TheTalkingTurboTrainer

Captain Fagor wrote:

If your girlfriend drinks coffee, I trust you shall be putting your foot down on that habit once she's "up the duff". [I understand there's a strong linkage between caffeine consumption and miscarriages, in case you're wondering what I'm on about].

She doesn't and neither do I if you're interested. We also don't take recreational drugs or drink much if anyone was to make those unrelated comments as well.

Look people the question was essentially how long does it take to recover. I wasn't asking for or wanting your opinions on what I should do, I'm big enough to make up my own mind. The decision on whether I ride or not is mine and yes a lot of cyclists professional or not have kids, I didn't say it makes you sterile. The linkage is to low sperm count, not no sperm count thereby making it more difficult, not impossible.

Nevermind, I'll ask a fertility expert directly, I was hoping someone might know the answer quickly but I guess not.

Alex, thanks for your response, I appreciate the links.

avoidingmyphd

dude, it's a nonsense question I'm afraid. If cycling has any effect, then it's not a regular one that people on forums can tell you about. whatever papers you find, or experts to consult, you can be pretty sure that the flipside of the "it lowers your (whose?) sperm count" is that it doesn't affect most people's at all.

bobpzero

schlepcycling wrote:

Well Chris Boardman has 5 children

the most definite proof. & ud cringe at the saddles he sat on.

windchill

There are lots of scare stories about what does and doesn't affect your sperm count/impotence chances etc. You need to bare in mind that sperm counts naturally vary a lot anyway. My local hospital gives a pretty big range of "normal values"- from memory, between 80-200 million per ml. Your sperm count will alter day to day anyway and the thing you must remember is that a change in your sperm count does not necessarily mean a change in your fertility.
Having sex lowers your sperm count anyway. This is one of the reasons the Royal Colleges advised againsst using ovulation predictor kits a few years ago. Couples were predicting their fertile period of the month and going at it hammer and tongs only to fail because the sperm count was through the floor at the crucial time, due to having done it two or three times a day for the previous few days.
So my advice would be stay healthy (as this affects the count too) ride your bike more often than you ride your wife to be and good luck!
Of course if you are successful you'll end up with a headache, screaming kids, a stressed out wife and wet dreams about a Litespeed that's sitting in the garage!.

Richard891

Sorry for coming across as hostile... it's simply that these sort of notions are dangerous if they have no solid factual basis applicable to recreational cyclists (like woodford2barbican said, 10 hours a day and perhaps there'd be an effect). Now I'm not saying there never was a cyclist who had fertility problems, but generally the mainstream (car-selling, cyclist-hating) media seem to love these kind of scare mongering stories. Of course it's simply another aspect of their tendancy to over-hype small studies that are published (or even not published as in the famous 1997 Goldstein impotence study) showing, say, that eating more than 50 oranges a day will give you cancer or that some other food has a miraculous properties and eating it will make you immortal...

...and you end up with people believing that it is well documented that cycling lowers your sperm count. Other posters have highlighted that male fertility is not just as simple as having a high sperm count, but if you want to focus on that, let's look at the first three abstracts Alex posted. These in fact have very small sample numbers anyway (10 competitive cyclists, for example, in the third one), but none of them conclude that cycling lowers your sperm count.

Bottom line - I don't think you've anything to worry about. All the best trying to conceive!

Spaincycler

Hi, I've had a quick look on your forum and you don't seem to have received much help. For your information it takes about 3 months for sperm to be produced. If you do a lot cycling it will affect your sperm count but maybe not significantly, unless you have other problems you will still be able to conceive but it may take a bit longer. If you have a low sperm count cycling may significantly affect the levels and therefore make conception almost impossible. I don't know what sperm count you have so I can't give you any recommendations, but if you want to optimise your chances, reduce your cycling 3 months before you want to start trying, don't have hot baths, don't wear tight trousers, keep off the alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, fish (some contain mercury) and stay fit and if you can't stay off your bike get a wider seat. However in answer to your question "How long until your sperm count picks up again?" - 3 months. If your wife is young (under 35) I'd say do the trip if she is near that age I'd give it a miss,
Hope this helps.

mclarent

Ovulation is the key to this methinks, as you can still manage it with less healthy troops on your side if you get the timing right. Your wife should take her tempreture daily before she get's up, should be fairly constant most of the month, but a drop signals on the onset of ovulation, whilst a rise signals that ovulation has occurred. You watching for the drop...

Worked first time for us!

biondino

Sperm count is about the number of healthy sperm, not the total number. It's no use churning out 200 million sperm if 199 million of them are wonky. I think (ballpark figure) 25-30% normal healthy sperm is considered normal.

schlepcycling

Spaincycler wrote:

If you do a lot cycling it will affect your sperm count but maybe not significantly.

Are you a fertility doctor?, on what grounds can you be so definitive that cycling will lower the OP's sperm count?. As many other people have mentioned there's no evidence that cycling does lower sperm count so all you're doing is scaremongering.

If you have a low sperm count cycling may significantly affect the levels and therefore make conception almost impossible

More scaremongering he may or may not already have a low sperm count and there's no proof that cycling will affect it in any way.

However in answer to your question "How long until your sperm count picks up again?" - 3 months.

You seem to be accepting that his sperm count will be negatively affect by his cycling and therefore needs 'picking up in the first place', which again there's no evidence to back up, so again you're offering 'advice' based on you're own belief.

andrewgturnbull

TheTalkingTurboTrainer wrote:

So I'm getting married in March next year and after giving this years Etape a miss, the guys and I are thinking of doing the 2009 event (we did 2007).

The girlfriend has just exercised her power of veto on this though and I'm not going to fight it in this case as we want to start a family after the wedding. It's a well documented fact that cycling lowers the sperm count, so unless i do a great job on the honeymoon in which case I can get back on the bike and train for the ride, I am not allowed to do it or indeed ride much at all.

My question is this. How long after stopping/cutting back on riding does it take for the sperm count to increase again? Should I be looking at putting the bike away in the new year and pound the pavement in a pair of running shoes instead so that by March I'm all locked and loaded? Or does it recover quicker than that and I could ride for a few more months?

Any sensible comments welcome. Smart a*s remarks not so much

Thanks in advance!

Hi there.

Mate - please don't take offense, but I think you're missing the bigger question here!

You're not even married yet and your intended is already exercising 'power of veto' over your cycling plans?

If cycling is your chosen hobby and you take it seriously then she should respect that. You need to sort this issue out prenuptially, else you'll both be in for a lot of pain in the long run!

Cheers, Andy

(Happily married for 10 years, with 2 kids)

mclarent

andrewgturnbull wrote:

TheTalkingTurboTrainer wrote:

So I'm getting married in March next year and after giving this years Etape a miss, the guys and I are thinking of doing the 2009 event (we did 2007).

The girlfriend has just exercised her power of veto on this though and I'm not going to fight it in this case as we want to start a family after the wedding. It's a well documented fact that cycling lowers the sperm count, so unless i do a great job on the honeymoon in which case I can get back on the bike and train for the ride, I am not allowed to do it or indeed ride much at all.

My question is this. How long after stopping/cutting back on riding does it take for the sperm count to increase again? Should I be looking at putting the bike away in the new year and pound the pavement in a pair of running shoes instead so that by March I'm all locked and loaded? Or does it recover quicker than that and I could ride for a few more months?

Any sensible comments welcome. Smart a*s remarks not so much

Thanks in advance!

Hi there.

Mate - please don't take offense, but I think you're missing the bigger question here!

You're not even married yet and your intended is already exercising 'power of veto' over your cycling plans?

If cycling is your chosen hobby and you take it seriously then she should respect that. You need to sort this issue out prenuptially, else you'll both be in for a lot of pain in the long run!

Cheers, Andy

(Happily married for 10 years, with 2 kids)

hahaha! +1 to that!

chuckcork

My missus tried to give me the line that maybe cycling reduces the sperm count, when we'd been trying for something like 18 months. Tests however showed that everything was Ok, normal production, normal rate of abnormalities and so on. On her side of things all tests came back OK and she was ovulating etc.

We started the IVF thing seeing as it was taking longer to conceive than it should but hadn't really got very far with it when...pregnancy!

Now have a healthy 15 month old, it just took its time in getting going thats all.

I'd personally argue that being less healthy as a result of less cycling and possibly more likely to be in the obese direction would actually be more likely to reduce your sperm count, not a reasonable amount of cycling (Not that I have anything to back that up), so cycling is actually good for you.

Also think of he longer term benefits: keep cycling and you'll be fit and healthy for your kids when they do come around, and in the meantime being a lean mean cycling machine your partner might be more interested in sex with you anyway....

skavanagh.bikeradar

While we have to compromise to fit in a wife and cycling......... +1 Andy.

I've ridden more than ever the last 24 months and it didn't prevent a baby being made and delivered. I think staying off the drugs, booze, caffine and getting early nights would be more likely to help you conveive. But what do I know, I'm a God fearing Puritan.