Cannabis and Fitness
As the world and society is continuously changing, so is the topic of cannabis. Even just about a decade ago Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize cannabis for recreational use. Now as of 2022, cannabis is becoming more of a normal everyday topic, with currently 37 states that have medical cannabis legalized including District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Within the legalization of recreational cannabis there is currently 18 states and with the look of it many more states are soon to follow the legalization of cannabis within recreational and medical use. Today, more research is being conducted of the benefits of cannabis that provides among the different ways for health among individual needs.
However, when discussing about the topic of cannabis and fitness it seems a bit taboo. Due to the mainstream media and movie productions having to portray an image that your typical cannabis user is lazy, on the couch majority of the time, having the constant munchies, and is possibly obese.
Yet, did you know that Arnold Schwarzenegger who won 5 Mr.Universe and 7 Mr. Olympic bodybuilding titles, have admitted of using cannabis for his intense training and recovery process during the 70’s. This was even before California become the first stated to legalized medical marijuiana in 1996.
Currently, at the University of Colorado Boulder, is conducting a research called SPACE - Study on Physical Activity and Cannabis Effects. Due to more Americans using cannabis within their exercise regime. Cannabis is becoming more popular among the fitness community and even several brands are now marketing to the fitness community.
Many fitness enthusiasts will take pre-workout and get pump for the gym. Now products like Vibations, which contains 30MG of caffeine and 5MG of THC, making it the perfect mix for your gym goer to be high and energized while working out. Attune Muscle Freeze, which is a topical cannabis product, great to apply on sore achey muscles after an intense training session or even after completing your first half-marathon. This is just a couple of cannabis products that are making their mark within the fitness industry.
So, what’s all the hype about combing cannabis and fitness? Let me first share with you my own personal experience and representing as a cannabis athlete on how cannabis has helped me during my training.
When I started taking my strength training seriously, I was nervous AF’ to be going to a big girl gym with heavy equipment machines, squat racks, and every time I turned I was like damn Booty goals. In all seriousness, I had major gym anxiety and intimidation I was ready to cut my workouts short every time I had enter the gym. How the thought occurred to me to use cannabis before entering the gym, I have no idea and this has been about 4 years ago since I started using cannabis within my training regime. What I could tell you is that it’s part of my everyday training. The gym no longer was a place where I felt anxious and nervous; it was just me, my training program, and my music completely zoned in. Next thing you know, I started to enjoy the gym more than I ever before, it became a place where it was my playground and completely my ME time.
After learning about cannabis, there are different strains that releases different levels of Dopamine and Serotonin chemicals within the brain (which are the chemicals that induces pleasure and feeling good). While these chemicals are being released during a training session the activity gradually becomes more enjoyable.
Now what about the munchies?! In cannabis there are different strains that induces appetite and others that even suppress appetite. Depending on the individual goals and choosing the correct strain could even increase your chance of accomplishing your fitness goal. There was a season in my life in which I wanted to gain healthy weight, but having the difficulty to increase my appetite, having a strain that helped increase my appetite and had me enjoying my veggies and brown rice was a BONUS!
Many professional athletes have recently admitted to use cannabis especially to help them with the recovery process. Many times when an individual start their fitness journey the recovery process gets overlooked. However, with the use of cannabis the cannabinoid receptors allows the body and mind to relax and increases the chance of having a goodnight rest. Once adding stretching or even foam rolling into the training regime it allows the stretch to go deeper and allowing the muscles to relax.
As more research is being conducted on cannabis and fitness, there are currently thousands of research within cannabis and anxiety, depression, chronic pain/fatigue, appetite, and more explaining the medicinal use. It would be no surprise that in the near future there will be thousand more research just in cannabis and exercise as it becomes more popular.
If you decide to conjoin cannabis within your training regime, do so safely, start in low doses, have a training plan and execute the exercises safely, but most importantly get zone in and allow the gym to be your playground.
Love,
Coach Ilia Maria A.K.A The Cannabis Athlete 🌿💪🏽
