Let’s face it, the fitness industry is saturated with supplements, powders, and everything in between. Many things are tried and true, and others…turn out to be hyped up fads,(and sometimes even dangerous.) Over the last few years, CBD has been taking the fitness world by storm, and is part of many professional athletes and moderate gym goers’ lives alike. But how and why did cannabis become part of an active lifestyle?
How does CBD help with Fitness?
While being active is a great way to be healthy and lengthen your life, this lifestyle often takes a toll on the body, such as soreness and inflammation. CBD, in both topical form and oral form has been shown to help with inflammation, recovery, focus and pain management. CBD has also been studied to aid in weight management, by curbing sugar cravings and balancing insulin and cortisol levels.
How does CBD help with pain management, inflammation and recovery?
Everyone from a UFC fighter to your everyday jogging mom can agree that nothing throws you off your groove more than being sore after a good workout. After Anxiety, the second most common reason individuals use CBD is for pain management.
Medical News today shared multiple studies on how CBD helps everything from chronic pain to arthritis. A study in the European Journal of Pain used an animal model to see if CBD could help people with arthritis manage their pain. Researchers applied a topical gel containing CBD to rats with arthritis for 4 days. Their researchers note a significant drop in inflammation and signs of pain, without additional side effect.
A separate study in the Journal of Experimental Medicine supports these results when it comes to chronic pain as well. This research suggests that using CBD can reduce pain and inflammation. The researchers also found that subjects were not likely to build up a tolerance to the effects of CBD, so they would not need to increase their dose continually.
CBD topical work great and is a natural alterative for relieving deep muscle soreness and joint pain. The best thing about CBD, is that is has little intoxicating effects, and lower side effects than most dangerous pain medications.
According to a Study mentioned in Men’s Health Magazine; a 2018 review of 132 original studies published in Frontiers in Neurology, CBD can indeed reduce inflammation in the body and help improve pain and mobility in patients with multiple sclerosis. “It is anti-inflammatory, antioxidative, antiemetic, antipsychotic, and neuroprotective,”. CBD helps decrease inflammation when it's rubbed on muscles as an ointment or taken orally.
CBD for Building Muscle and Weight Management
As previously mentioned, CBD helps balance the bodies cortisol levels. Cortisol is a naturally occurring steroid hormone in your body that regulates a wide range of processes throughout the body, including metabolism and the immune response. Cortisol is known for producing the “fight or flight” response in our body and is often the culprit behind anxiety, high blood pressure and inflammation. When balanced, cortisol controls blood pressure, increases the body’s metabolism of glucose, and reduces inflammation.
Cortisol negatively impacts muscle building because high levels reduce protein synthesis and actively prevents tissue growth. High levels of cortisol also lead to stress and anxiety, which negatively impact sleep, and sleep is the most important part of muscle building and recovery. Stress is also a huge culprit behind weight gain because it directly impacts your metabolism. CBD keeps homeostasis in the body, this helps keep high levels of stress producing cortisol at bay.
CBD for Stamina and focus during workouts
In the fitness world, is common to use stimulants to enhance your workouts and stamina. These stimulants are often caffeine based, and the biggest cons many users agree on are the ‘jitters’ that come with them. CBD is not only great for easing anxiety, but great at keeping you calm and focused during your workout. Also, many people diagnosed with ADD and ADHD have been turning to CBD for focus, and it has shown to be a more gentle and healthy alternative to medications.
So how can CBD enhance your workout performance? MarijuanaBreak.com says ‘Cannabidiol is actually ideal, and possibly quite effective at motivating consumers to hit the gym more often, or simply for making workouts a bit more comfortable and bearable’. Working out with a calm mind and pain free body ensures you are able to stay ‘in the zone’ and get those extra reps in.
Is it legal?
The stigma behind cannabis products is slowly fading, and many professional athletes are becoming more and more comfortable talking about and endorsing CBD. What made the most buzz, was in 2016 when MMA fighter Nate Diaz used a CBD vape pen during a press conference, and put his career at risk. Instead of ending his career, the act influenced an important change to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)’s policies. WADA looked further into CBD, deemed it safe and non-psychoactive, and it was later removed from the list of prohibited substances.
If you’re going to invest in CBD oil be sure it is from a trusted company (Like Hudson Valley CBD) and with less than 0.3% THC content, which will ensure it is legal in all 50 states.
The Truth
While many studies have been done, in both clinical and real world settings, CBD is still in the early stages of wide spread acceptance. We pride ourselves on making the highest quality products, and our users can attest to our products being a huge part of their active lives. As always, we are not doctors, just regular people who love cannabis and want to help people feel better. We encourage you to do your own research and do what you think is right for your body.
Sources:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319475.php
https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/postings/2017/10/cortisol.php
https://ministryofhemp.com/blog/athletes-use-cbd/
https://www.menshealth.com/health/a26467604/cbd-for-inflammation-muscle-recovery/
https://www.marijuanabreak.com/ways-cbd-can-help-to-boost-your-workout