Pop in a gummy, roll up a j or consume an edible before working out? Stereotypes say this is not what Cannabis users do, but an increasing number of athletes are speaking out to extoll the benefits of consuming cannabis while undertaking physical activity.
Athletes Promote Cannabis
Ultramarathoner Heather Mashoodi says, “when I run for a really long time, this thing naturally kicks in and it makes the colors brighter and makes my thoughts clearer and makes me more emotionally in tune. When I use cannabis and run, I get to feel that at a little less intense mileage.”
Former road racing cyclist Floyd Landis, who owns a CBD business called Floyd’s of Leadville said, “The therapeutic uses for cannabis can’t be ignored. For years I relied on opioid pain relievers to treat my hip pain. With cannabis, I find that I can manage my pain and have a better quality of life. We need to give people a safer alternative.”
Former NFL tight end Nate Jackson wrote, in an op-ed piece for the LA Times, “By the time I tore my groin off the bone, in 2007, I was medicating only with cannabis. The team doctors cheered the speed at which I was healing, but I couldn’t disclose to them all that I was experiencing — no pain, no inflammation, restful sleep, vigorous appetite, a clear head.
In a 2017 interview with leafly.com, former NHL enforcer Riley Cote said, “It wasn’t until I really got to about 20 years old or a little older when I started my pro hockey career—I really started to understand the therapeutic benefits. That is when I started fighting—fighting in hockey, specifically, and really started catching the wear and so I think it started resonating to me that this is helping me manage pain, this is calming my nerves and anxieties of fighting—and help me sleep, and recover.”
Former elite cyclist and current triathlete Andrew Talansky told Outdoor magazine, “I took [CBD] for a couple of weeks, and there was a noticeable difference immediately. And it wasn’t just that my hip was feeling better. I was less anxious, and I was sleeping better.”
Breaking the Myth
Recent studies have also revealed that the stereotypical lazy stoner is really a myth. In the study Obesity and Cannabis Use: Results From 2 Representative National Surveys, the authors found that regular users of cannabis had a lower propensity for obesity than non-users. Similarly another study by Angela Bryan of the University of Colorado at Boulder found that users who mix cannabis use with physical activity spend more time exercising than cannabis users who don’t mix the two.
Bryan is a professor of Social Psychology who will be overseeing a new study which will test the effects of cannabis on people engaging in exercise. This new SPACE (Study on Physical Activity and Cannabis Effects) study will be the first study of its kind to measure the effects of commercially produced marijuana on participants.
Federal guidelines in the US on cannabis studies dictate that researchers can only provide government sanctioned marijuana to participants. However the samples contain much lower THC levels than commercially available cannabis products. Being able to test subjects using the products they are accustomed to makes this study unique.
They get around these federal regulations by using a mobile research van, or Cannavan, which waits outside study participants’ homes for them to consume their own cannabis and then drives them to the research facility in order to complete the observations and tests.
Measuring the Effects of Cannabis on Exercise
The SPACE study is separated into three parts.
- In the first part of the study participants are interviewed, given a questionnaire to fill out and have baseline health measurements taken.
- The second part of the study consists of participants coming to the research facility to run on a treadmill for 30 minutes. During their session they are asked questions about how they are feeling physically and mentally as well as their perception of the passage of time among other things.
- The third part is much the same as the second part only participants are instructed to get high before this session.
The aim of the study is to figure out whether cannabis does improve performance, hinder performance, some of both or nothing at all.
Bryan says, “As we get older, exercise starts to hurt, and that is one reason older adults don’t exercise as much. If cannabis could ease pain and inflammation, helping older adults to be more active, that could be a real benefit.”
Read more about the study on the CU Boulder SPACE page.
Photo by Resilience CBD on Unsplash
