Cannabis for Pre and Post Workout
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The latest exercise booster is not an energy drink or a powder. It’s a natural cannabis flower. People who smoke legal marijuana before or after an exercise report experiencing benefits. It is mainly because the cannabinoids in weed make workouts more enjoyable and post-workout recovery a lot faster.
Now that getting high is legal, athletes have more access to marijuana. The psychoactive effects of marijuana will not make you stronger or faster. It will not improve your aerobic performance because there is no scientific evidence that THC can do this. Nevertheless, THC and CBD may have beneficial effects on your workout.
Does Smoking Weed and Working Out Work?
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The cannabis plant contains tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). These cannabinoids have been reported to have anti-inflammatory, pain-relieving, and muscle-relaxing properties. These effects may help alleviate arthritic joint pain, muscle pain, muscle soreness, and muscle spasms. Hence, whenever you smoke cannabis before and after a workout, you are more likely to be able to return to your workout sessions quicker because your muscles recover faster.
It is essential to understand that cannabis contains more than 100 compounds called cannabinoids. Out of these compounds, THC and CBD are the most predominant. THC causes the popular psychoactive high, while CBD delivers potential therapeutic benefits to the mind and body.
Cannabis May Increase Your Motivation to Exercise
Are you thinking of skipping training today? Many people associate stoners with laziness. However, if you smoke the right strain of weed, you may feel motivated to get back to training. It turns out that THC may help energize your body and give you the proper motivation to continue with your workout routines.
THC might help you achieve the runner’s high. Athletes know that it is pretty tricky to achieve this feeling. Nevertheless, the euphoric sensation created by the body’s endocannabinoid system may be easily achieved with weed. Remember that cannabinoids also interact with the brain’s reward system. Hence, you may get into the runner’s high much quicker and get more motivation to continue running.
Cannabis May Increase Endurance
Anecdotal reports from athletes show that cannabis may help enhance endurance. Remember that smoking is not the only way to consume cannabis. It may be best to ingest it as an edible to enhance the potency of THC.
As soon as you ingest the cannabinoid, it may help amplify the effect of the euphoric runner’s high and provide pain-relieving benefits. Hence, you may be able to perform as many physical exercises without succumbing to physical pain.
Marijuana may also help enhance focus, improve muscle relaxation, and alter how you perceive time. You may find these things helpful, primarily if you perform dull and repetitive routines like stationary walking and cycling. Therefore, you can keep doing repetitive exercises for as long as possible.
Do Not Use Cannabis before Heavy Workouts
It turns out that cannabis is not always good for exercise. Studies indicate that THC may decrease your strength, affect coordination, and diminish your ability for risk assessment. Therefore, using cannabis for heavy or complicated exercises is not a good idea.
Too much THC may produce side effects, including slowed reaction time, poor coordination, and poor balance. Whenever you are planning on doing HIIT exercises, rock climbing, or any other activity that requires enhanced mental acuity and motor control, never smoke cannabis beforehand.
Do Not Indulge in Cannabis Before Every Workout
While many anecdotal reports and preliminary studies indicate that THC may help enhance your performance in endurance exercises, it is not good to take THC in high quantities every time you do your workouts. You do not want to risk getting addicted to the cannabinoid.
Even if you are not going to develop THC addiction, you will increase your tolerance toward the compound. That means that you will need to increase your dosage before you can achieve the same results as before. The best practice is to use cannabis moderately and reserve it for the long runs that require endurance.
Smoking weed before working out may affect your lungs. Although smoking weed has not been linked to lung cancer, incinerating weed still produces carcinogens that may affect your health in the long run. If you want to protect your lungs from the dangers of smoking, turn to other consumption methods like eating edibles and sublingual administration.
Remember that THC may help boost your motivation, reduce pain perception, and enhance your endurance. However, you also have to minimize your health risks and save cannabis use for the days you genuinely need a boost in your athletic performance.
Always Start with Low Dose and Go Slow
Working out high on weed has its share of benefits. Nevertheless, it is a good practice to do it when there is a low level of risk involved. Some people have reported that they could not complete their workouts because of the psychoactive effects of weed.
Bear in mind that the cannabis experience varies from person to person. There are many compounds in cannabis, and each person reacts to them differently. Please note that each person has a unique endocannabinoid system. Hence, the compounds in cannabis may affect you uniquely from all the rest.
Whenever you think of using cannabis before your workout, remember that your goal is not to get high. Your goal is to use the least amount of cannabis to achieve better athletic performance.
What kind of marijuana strain should you smoke then? Look for strains that have a THC content lower than 15 percent. If possible, look for strains with a high percentage of CBD. If you can find a balanced 1:1 CBD to THC ratio, that would be ideal. CBD counteracts many of the adverse side effects of THC.
If you want a safer alternative, try vaping instead of smoking weed after working out. Vaping delivers the cannabinoids into your system as fast as smoking but with a lower health risk.
Eating edibles is not a bad idea if you are not in a hurry. It is safer than vaping and smoking, but it will take longer to take effect.
Using CBD for Pre-Workout
Sleep plays a crucial role in your athletic performance. Thus, you should always get a good night’s sleep before having any heavy workout routine. Understand that the body needs to repair itself fully before engaging in another training session.
You will not get the most out of your workout routines without enough sleep. If you live an active life, you should sleep more than those who live a sedentary lifestyle.
The body regulates itself in various ways while sleeping. During non-REM sleep, protein synthesis takes place to repair damaged muscles. Without enough sleep, your body inhibits glycogen production. Glycogen is the fuel that the muscles need to function during exercise. If you deplete your glycogen stores, you will lose endurance and the ability to complete your exercise routines.
That said, the preparation for your workout starts with a good night’s sleep. Fortunately, preliminary studies and anecdotal evidence indicate that CBD may help enhance sleep. There are even CBD products that combine with other sleep enhancers like melatonin.
As long as you get enough sleep at night, you are more likely to perform better in your next workout session. Experts indicate that CBD may soothe stress and discomfort. Therefore, you are more likely to perform better as you go on with your physical training.
Of course, everyone has a unique endocannabinoid system. Hence, CBD may affect your mind and body differently. Therefore, further research is required to study the actual effects of CBD on exercise.
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Consuming CBD Gummies, Capsules, and Other Edibles
Edibles, like cannabis gummies, take around 45 minutes to two hours to start taking effect. Hence, there are two ways you can use CBD for your pre-workout routine.
First, you can use edibles as a supplement for your post-workout recovery. The key here is to take the edibles immediately before you start your exercise session. As you exercise, the body starts digesting the edibles to prepare for post-workout recovery. Just as you finish your exercise routine, the edibles may now begin to manifest their effects. Taking your edibles this way eliminates the possibility of getting sleepy while performing your workouts.
Second, you can take the edibles around two hours before exercising. Taking CBD this way allows you to enjoy its benefits as you exercise. Remember not to take too much CBD because it may cause you to get sleepy and lose interest in continuing your routine.
Consuming Tinctures
CBD oil tinctures provide you with a faster way to absorb the cannabinoid. Place a few drops under the tongue and let it sit for at least a full minute. This method bypasses the digestive tract and liver and goes straight to the bloodstream.
Tinctures come in flavoured options to make consumption a lot more tolerable. If you prefer the raw grassy and earthy flavor of hemp, choose the non-flavored varieties. You can also add the tincture to your favourite sports drink and consume it before starting your workout.
Only use tinctures sublingually if you want to immediately feel the effects of CBD during your workout. It takes around 5 to 15 minutes for the effects to kick in. However, adding it to your beverages may take approximately 15 to 60 minutes to start working.
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Using CBD for Post-Workout Recovery
We do not have enough studies on cannabis and its effects on pain, inflammation, and workouts. However, the preliminary studies show that cannabinoids may alleviate general pain, inflammation, and muscle spasms in humans.
CBD is considered the most helpful cannabinoid for recovery because it helps reduce inflammation. It allows you to go through the recovery period faster and get back into the training session as soon as possible.
Once again, we may not know precisely how CBD acts to provide its potential benefits. Nevertheless, we know its effects from preliminary studies and anecdotal reports. Researchers also hypothesize that THC and CBD work together to enhance each other’s potential health benefits. Hence, it is essential to consume full-spectrum cannabis products instead of CBD or THC isolates.
CBD with a small amount of THC is great for inflammation and soreness. A 15:1 or 20:1 CBD to THC ratio may be ideal for muscle recovery. It would be better if you could access a product that contains those ratios or close.
If you get injured or feel muscle soreness, the key is to get the cannabinoids into your system as quickly as possible. The sooner you get the CBD and a bit of THC into your system from the time of injury or stress, the faster they will work together to hasten your recovery period.
Dosing with CBD
It is hard to determine which dose is ideal for your personal use. Many products recommend that you take around 10 to 25 mg per day. However, many scientific studies use 50 mg or more daily on their participants.
Scientific studies show that humans can take as much as 1,500 mg of CBD daily without ill effects. Fortunately, this means that it is really hard to overdose on CBD. It may cause you to become sedated and utterly unproductive, but it will not significantly impact your health and well-being.
How to Benefit from CBD after a Workout
If you want to benefit from the potential anti-inflammatory properties of CBD, take around 25-50 mg of CBD after a workout. You may want to skip the topicals and gummies because they take too long to reach the inflammation. Your best bet is to take a tincture sublingually.
Sublingual administration allows you to enjoy the benefits of CBD faster than ingesting CBD edibles like gummies. If you want to enhance the effects of CBD, choose a full-spectrum tincture containing a little THC.
Purchase your CBD tinctures from a reputable store to ensure you get a high-quality product. Check out the lab results for the product and compare them to the potency of cannabinoids listed on the packaging.
If you prefer to smoke CBD instead of consuming tincture, choose high CBD strains like Harlequin. Before you smoke your weed, please be aware of the risks and the health implications of marijuana smoke.
