An LGBTQ Personal Trainer’s Guide to Sex Part 2

An LGBTQ personal trainer in Toronto talks about sex

In my last post we discussed many of the wonderful side effects of all kinds of gay and straight sex and sex adjacent activity. We talked about how sleep was improved and about how cis men who ejaculate on the regs show a decrease in incidents of prostate cancer. We talked about heart health and how sex improves it in so many ways: from helping to balance hormones to helping with blood pressure and of course the simple fact that sex can be a kind of exercise in and of itself, outside of the gym. Sex can also be good for a cis woman’s pelvic floor as well as well as helping to lower everyone’s cortisol levels. Sex can be great for our health and it’s totally okay if it’s not your thing - but if it is and you’re wondering how you can improve on this cornucopia of goodness, this post is going to try and give a little help with that. Without further adeu, let’s get to it!

AN LGBTQ personal trainer in Toronto gets into the thick of it

As many of us know, despite how fun and healthy sex can be, there are many things that can interfere with a good, regular sex life. thigs like not having a sex partner and more trauma-based issues will have to be left to people who know significantly more about those specific issues than me. What I CAN speak to is some of the more physiological issues that can arise and so that’s what I’m going to do here!

AN LGBTQ personal trainer in Toronto talks increasing and improving our sex lives

How do we improve our sex lives? As you can see, outside of the obvious, there are a lot of good reasons to be having more sex. What can help us with that? Both in terms of the amount of sex we are having and the quality of that sex?

The answer (from me at least) might be a little too obvious but it doesn’t stop it from being one hundred percent true…

AN LGBTQ personal trainer in Toronto talks exercise and SEX

EXERCISE! get that hot bod to the gym! Exercise helps us feel sexier. You know what I mean here: exercising, even in the very initial days of a new routine helps us feel ourselves more. The pride and sense of accomplishment lends itself dramatically to feeling hotter and more capable. As exercise continues, the increased mobility that can come into play with a well-rounded routine as well as increased strength and endurance can go a long way to boosting our confidence in the bedroom.

But even more specifically, exercise can dramatically affect sexual performance AND pleasure. Exercise is great at aiding blood flow and circulation: both key components of sexual arousal and satisfaction in everybody. Aerobic exercise has been shown to be particularly effective at increasing blood flow and circulation, while weight training has been shown to increase libido.

AN LGBTQ personal trainer in Toronto touches on stress

I’ll keep this real short and sweet: exercise reduces stress. I’m going to assume that I don’t need to really get into how much stress can wreak havoc on arousal and performance - it can be real hard to be in the mood when we’re super stressed out. Exercise lowers cortisol (stress hormone) and can help relieve depression too. Exercise can truly help. Simple as that.

AN LGBTQ personal trainer in Toronto adds some last minute caveats

A key bit to remember with all of this is that over-exercising and severe calorie restriction will actually really work against sexual arousal and function. So we don’t want too much of either. Calorie restriction is a bit tricky in many ways to begin with but severe calorie restriction can send your body into a high stress state and what did we JUST talk about? Stress is gonna mean decreased libido and ability to get the job done.

Same goes for over-training. Too much of a good thing and your body will be too stressed to want to and even if it did there’ll be less chance it’d really be able to get itself primed.

How do we know we’re overtraining? Luckily there are a lot of easy signs to let us know we are going a little too hard in the gym. Are you not recovering thoroughly between workouts? Are you a little more irritable than usual? Are you having issues sleeping or any kind of restless sleeping? These could all be signs (especially when taken together) that you could do with a little backing off in your exercise and fitness routine. This is a whole other post but just remember that whatever you are trying to accomplish with training that much, if you are overtraining, you are actually having the opposite effect of the one you intended. Back off, take a break and give your body a chance to cool out.

AN LGBTQ personal trainer in Toronto signs off once more

That’s it for me for another couple of weeks! I hope these posts continue to be helpful and as always I love the feedback and hearing from everyone so keep it coming! I hope you all have a wonderful couple of weeks and I’ll be back here soon. See you in the gym!