Cannabis is on everybody’s lips today, and people are discovering more and more about its benefits. The use of marijuana used to be associated with lazy-bones who don’t think much about life, but that’s no longer the case. Cannabis has been gaining people’s acceptance and attention; you can find a weed shop in Las Vegas, San Francisco, Denver or Portland without getting into too much trouble. Marijuana (especially its non-psychoactive compound called CBD) is being recognized by many because of its properties, and athletes are not an exception. They have always been looking for ways to improve their training and recovery time – and using cannabis for training has a lot to offer in these areas.
It reduces pain
Cannabis has been widely used as a painkiller for thousands of years now, and it’s presently considered as one of the best natural medicines for reducing pain which has been confirmed by people suffering from various issues, like arthritis, degenerative disk disease, or cancer. And, as we all can probably imagine, sport is not always healthy and beneficial for those who are serious about it. Professional athletes struggle with pain all the time. Several training sessions a day, hours spent on the gym can be the cause of delayed-onset muscle soreness at first, and wear-and-tear later. The first is the right kind of pain, but it’s still painful and it leads to limping and movement limitations, and it basically never ends, as long as an athlete continues to train. Wear-and-tear comes later, after years of training and practice. Being in any kind of sport competitively isn’t very good for your organism – old injuries come back, your bones, muscles and tissues are weaker than those of regular men – because they really are worn out. Here is where using cannabis for training is extremely helpful – it’s a healthy alternative to other anti-inflammatory and opiate-based pharmaceuticals.
It helps you to sleep well
We all know how important optimal sleep is. It doesn’t matter if you’re training, recovering or simply, well, living – you need sleep in order to function well. It’s been proven by research and confirmed by its users that cannabis can help you improve the quality of sleep. And it’s especially important for recovering athletes as the right sleep cycle helps to recycle body cells and activate hormones to produce muscle growth and repair any damage that might have been done. If you don’t sleep as you should, it will take more time for you to recover. What’s more, many athletes suffer from insomnia because of the pressure, nutrient deficiencies and other demands that they put on their central nervous system.
It helps you with Runner’s High
Everyone who’s active, even 100% amateur, has experienced something called the runner’s high, even if they didn’t know how to call it at that time. It’s the moment when you suddenly become very focused, you see everything clearly and you feel like you could be running forever. It’s very often attributed to endorphins (hormones that temporarily prevent you from feeling pain), but, according to research, it’s caused by something called endocannabinoids – it’s similar to cannabis, but it’s produced by our own bodies. Unfortunately, you can’t really decide when you want to produce it; that’s where marijuana can be of help, as it’s believed it may help you achieve the runner’s high. Most athletes using cannabis for training eat edibles that get to you very quickly and can stay in the system for a longer period of time. It’s all because of cannabis’ propriety of reducing anxiety, forgetting about your worries and helping you to stay in the moment, focused.
It helps with injuries
If you train something professionally, or even semi-professionally, you are going to finally get injured – it’s inevitable. Muscle, joint and tendon inflammation are the order of the day for anyone physically engaged in sports, and it’s not about how much you try to stay safe. Sometimes you push yourself too far and you allow a part of your body to stay inflamed for too long which leads to tendonitis, a very painful condition. Using cannabis for training can actually help in reducing any kind of inflammation, therefore it’s helpful in the case of tendonitis that normally takes a long time to heal. Of course, you will still need a proper diet (no refined carbs or sugars as they make inflammation worse), massages and the right exercises, but marijuana can be of help. Significantly.
It reduces recovery time
There’s nothing worse than an injury when you’re training for a specific competition and you have a date to be ready for. The longer it takes for you to recover, the fewer training sessions you will be able to complete. That’s also where cannabis can be efficient – a lot of athletes claim that using marijuana helped them to recover much faster than ever before. It’s because it helps with many different factors that contribute to fast recovery – the quantity and quality of sleep, inflammation, outside stressors, and more. What’s more, cannabis, on the contrary to many drugs, is not toxic for your organism.
Cannabis can be beneficial for every athlete, especially if it’s combined with the right food and lifestyle. It’s not a must, but it’s definitely something to consider.
