How Using CBD Can Help Improve Your Performance In The Gym

Introduction

The legality of cannabidiol (CBD) in an increasing number of states as well as in many countries around the world has underscored its value as a natural health ingredient in the field of sports athletics.

Nowadays, gym enthusiasts, athletes, and sports-related professionals such as coaches, nutritionists, and sports medicine providers can find CBD oil, tinctures, patches, creams, and vape juices in the market without any issues.

Oftentimes, CBD is used to simply improve the general quality of one’s everyday life. Apparently, it can also have a positive effect on one’s athletic abilities in the long run. Athletes and gym enthusiasts alike have found themselves using CBD from time to time to boost their performance and relieve post-workout soreness.

How A Functioning Endocannabinoid System Makes You A Better Athlete

CBD is one of the many cannabinoids that are present in Cannabis sativa. Unlike its psychoactive cousin, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), CBD doesn’t lead to euphoria. It can be used anytime as long as you have health clearance from your doctor.

The human body has an endocannabinoid system (ECS) that’s capable of producing its own cannabinoids. Generally, cannabinoids are responsible for maintaining the body’s internal balance. This involves regulating important functions like mood, digestion, pain tolerance, and sleep patterns.

For example, working out causes microtraumas in your muscles. As a result, the ECS’ cannabinoids will respond to heal that. However, in the absence or in the lack of cannabinoids, pain and inflammation are bound to set in.

This is where CBD comes in. While it doesn’t necessarily replace your ECS’ cannabinoids, it does stimulate your ECS to make more of it. Because of this, CBD oil for athletes has become a popular solution for those who train regularly, as well as for those who suffer from muscle soreness due to intermittent training.

CBD And Gym Performance Benefits

Your physiological systems are tipped off-balance when your ECS fails to produce sufficient amounts of natural cannabinoids. If you’re an athlete or a regular gym-goer, this will quickly be evident in your training performance. For instance, you may find it hard to complete your sets, or you may continue to feel exhausted in your next sessions.

In this case, CBD products can help you harness the energy you need to power through your workouts. CBD can do this by providing the following benefits:

Immediate Pain Relief

Many CBD enthusiasts turn to CBD because they need a reliable solution for pain relief. Studies show that CBD has anti-inflammatory properties, something that’s extremely effective if you want to avoid DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) after a workout.

Many have asked the question, is CBD legal for athletes? Yes. As mentioned, in 2018, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) declared cannabidiol or CBD as a legal substance.

Athletes who push themselves too hard can minimize physical damage and recover more effectively with the help of CBD. This is because CBD speeds up the healing of muscle tears and microtears by interacting with the body’s ECS receptors.

If you’re planning to use CBD for muscle pains, patches or topicals may be the better product because they have higher bioavailability compared to other forms. This means that your body will be able to absorb more CBD at a faster rate. Hence, you’ll be able to feel its effects sooner.

Better Sleep And Recovery

Sometimes, even though you’ve exhausted yourself to pulp from your training, you may still find it hard to fall asleep. Worst of all, your appetite can get messed up while you’re dealing with soreness all over your body. This can only create more stress, which prevents your muscles from healing properly.

You probably always hear how hard work is important in developing your best self but sleep and recovery are just as important. After all, it is during sleep that your body releases the HGH (human growth hormone) that is responsible for making your muscles bigger and stronger.

This is where CBD can help. Because CBD can boost users’ sleep quality, it can play a significant role in an athlete’s recovery. When you’re able to sleep better every night, you’ll feel refreshed in your next workout.

Mood Booster For A Big Event

Users also rely on CBD to calm their nerves down before an important event. While everyday training isn’t something that you have to mentally prepare for, you may have the jitters just before a competition. Looking back on how faithful you’ve been to your program, you know that you can’t dwell on this.

To ensure that negative thoughts won’t get to your head after all your hard work, CBD can help you manage your anxieties before your big event. This will help you be at your best and produce the kind of performance that you have been planning.

Energy For Workouts

CBD isn’t a super potion that can make you stronger or faster the way that illegal performance-enhancing drugs can. Instead, it helps your body reach the optimal states that would allow for the best performance by using perfectly legal means.

Indeed, CBD has a huge potential in the world of sports and fitness. Whether you’re just a health enthusiast who’s a regular at the gym or an athlete who wants to be at the top of your game, the right CBD dosage can make you feel like you’re always energized, always confident and comfortable.

More Benefits of Using CBD Oil While Exercising

Currently, CBD has been a growing part of people’s daily health routines.

Its natural approach to treat and prevent many health symptoms is truly promising, and quality CBD products have never disappointed its users.

Today, you’re going to discover more about this wonder Cannabis compound as an all-natural fitness and exercise support.

Surprisingly, people who have regular workouts and fitness performance daily can also benefit from this wonder compound. If you’re one of those people, you can include CBD oil from sites like http://www.cheefbotanicals.com or other trusted CBD companies, to acquire the following benefits during your exercise:

Induces Balance

Your body craves internal balance in every type of environment. Before having your workout, having a few drops of CBD oil can help you power up for your activities. Thus, it’s ideal to take CBD oil in the morning to achieve this desired benefit.

CBD is known for its harmonious relationship with the endocannabinoid system (ECS) of the body. CBD molecules activate cannabinoid receptors placed all around the body, which is responsible for sustaining homeostasis – an internal state of balance, for your stress, metabolism, appetite, sleep, and mood. CBD’s ability to maintain internal balance can be associated with your pre-exercise sessions.

A great example of this is how CBD unleashes its vasorelaxant properties in improving blood flow. It relieves tension in your blood vessels which is perfect before you start exercising. With this condition, your blood pressure will also balance out effectively, extending your body’s capability to perform without feeling immediate fatigue.

Boosts Focus

Having trouble focusing on the gym? Taking drops of CBD oil can assist you to regain alertness and focus during your exercise.

Extreme cortisol levels can make you feel stressed, altering your focus and concentration. Moreover, workouts leaning on the high-intensity level can signal cortisol to be released, halting tissue growth and diminishing protein synthesis. After all, intensive workouts might not be effective after all. Thanks to CBD, you can counteract this from happening because of its anti-catabolic properties. You’ll consequently calm down and feel more focused quickly upon ingestion.

Relieves Anxiety

One of the prominent receptors in your body are CB1 and CB2 receptors. While there is no direct association of CB1 receptors with the brain, these receptors commonly found in the nervous system can alter serotonin signals. They don’t directly increase serotonin levels in your brain, but it changes how your brain receptors respond to serotonin found in your system.

Serotonin is an essential neurotransmitter also called the “hormone of happiness.” Alterations of CBD in the serotonin system of your brain can cause an effect related to regulating your mood and happiness, and most importantly, reducing your anxiety.

CBD’s potential to relieve anxiety is extremely helpful for athletes and professional fitness enthusiasts suffering from performance anxiety before a competition. Taking a few drops of CBD oil can do the trick of reducing your anxiety.

Also, CBD oil with little to no traces of THC helps you to lessen anxiety in a healthy way, without experiencing any psychoactive effects. Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is a compound found in Cannabis plants that can have a euphoric effect on its user. The CB1 receptors found in your body, when activated by a neurotransmitter called anandamide, causes an individual to ‘feel high.’ Surprisingly, anandamide and THC have the same chemical structure, and the CB1 receptors mistake THC for anandamide and fuels up for activation.

Soothes Pain and Inflammation

Having CBD in your post-workout sessions can significantly change how your body responds to pain and inflammation. The ECS is greatly linked also to management of pain. With the wonders of CBD molecules, it promotes effective cell-to-cell communication and activates pain receptors in the body. Most importantly, CBD can help in relieving pain and inflammation in the common target of pain during exercise – your muscular system, which will be elaborated later.

Include CBD oil in your post-workout routine to experience less pain and inflammation, especially if you’re new to rigorous exercising and will likely experience more pain. Using CBD oil consistently from day to day will also have long-term benefits on how you respond to pain.

Promotes Muscle Recovery

After workout, no one is protected from muscle pain and soreness, but CBD can help you promote faster and better muscle recovery than you would normally have without CBD. Extensive and rigorous workouts can cause your muscle tissues to develop tearing that triggers pain and inflammation. After physical activity, your body goes into the healing process.

These damaged tissues will start to repair and transform into stronger ones. However, when you push your body too far, your muscles will struggle to recover normally. This is when CBD induces muscle recovery by unleashing its anti-inflammatory properties.

Stimulates Better Sleep

Sleep and physical activity have positive impacts on one another. Sufficient sleep can indirectly increase your physical performance, and constant physical activity improves the quality of sleep. When you incorporate CBD oil into your health routine, the results are much more beneficial to your sleep and exercise.

It has been proved that CBD directly induces sleep because of calming and relaxing effects. This is why CBD is used by people suffering from anxiety, depression, insomnia, and other sleeping troubles. Through stimulating a better night’s sleep, you will consequently feel better waking up in the morning and starting your workout routine.

Conclusion

In a myriad of ways, fitness junkies can benefit from using CBD oils for their exercise. Among a variety of CBD administration methods, ingesting CBD from oils and tinctures sublingually are found to be the most effective and immediate way.

With CBD oils, you can establish balance, increase focus, lessen anxiety, relieve pain and inflammation for muscle recovery, and achieve a better sleep, which all contributes to your overall well-being.

About Shannon Clark

Shannon holds a degree in Exercise Science and is a certified personal trainer and fitness writer with over 10 years of industry experience.