CBD and sports are becoming a surprising partnership as CBD gains wide acceptance and interest worldwide. Fitness enthusiasts and athletes have begun researching the benefits of CBD to determine if it can help them boost their endurance, quicken their recovery, and alleviate pain.
CBD products have been popping up in health and sports news articles over the last years and are described as cures that can treat almost any health issue. Because it promises to support fitness performance and provide pain relief, many people are making CBD products part of their post-workout routine. But if you haven’t used CBD products before, you may wonder if you should combine them with your exercise.
Despite its rapid growth in popularity, you may think CBD is a baseless fad because science hasn’t backed yet all the benefits it promises. But it’s proved that CBD has anti-inflammatory properties and interacts with the human endocannabinoid system (the system that promotes balance throughout the body). Because of these properties, you can use CBD to boost exercise recovery. However, you shouldn’t expect CBD to have a magic effect, especially when it comes to performance.
Keep reading to understand what’s fact and what’s fiction when it comes to CBD.
Fact – you can use it to alleviate muscle soreness
As stated before, CBD has anti-inflammatory properties, so you can use it to reduce the muscle discomfort you feel after an intense workout. It can prove quite helpful if you’ve just started your fitness journey because it can ease soreness and help you establish a routine without experiencing the side effects associated with working out. Even if there are no studies linking CBD to reduced muscle soreness directly, research proved that it could fight inflammation and, therefore, easily curb the discomfort you experience during the repair process.
Pain is the most common side effect associated with exercising. If you engage in any form of high-energy exercise, you’re bound to deal with a degree of pain after each workout. The experts from Organic CBD Nugs explain, “CBD interacts with the body’s pain receptors spread throughout your endocannabinoid system and alleviates pain.”
Fact – You can use it to alleviate pain
CBD is also used to provide pain relief. One review shows that CBD effectively supports overall pain management if you suffer from chronic pain and has no associated side effects. You can use a balm or lotion to apply it topically on the area where you feel pain, add a bath bomb to your bath and soak yourself into the water, or take an edible internally to distribute it throughout the entire body. Warm baths are known for their soothing effect on the body after a strenuous workout session, so if you add a CBD bath bomb, you enhance its effects.
It’s common to experience pain on a regular basis when you exercise because your joints and muscles are stressed repeatedly, become inflamed, and inflammation causes pain. Another source of pain when you exercise regularly is nerve pain or neurological pain triggered by repeated injuries that produce nerve damage. CBD can lower inflammation and therefore alleviate pain. CBD has pain-relieving properties because it interacts with the chemical receptors in your body that are involved in how you sense pain.
The great part about CBD is that it works both against neuropathic and nociceptive pain. Neuropathic pain is pain that affects your nervous system and can result from chronic conditions like endometriosis, multiple sclerosis, or arthritis. Nociceptive pain is a form of pain resulting from strain or physical injury to the joints and muscles; an energy-intensive workout can cause this kind of pain.
Fact – It can boost your endurance
If you use CBD when you exercise, you can boost your performance. More research is needed in this area, but studies found out that CBD can improve endurance when paired with the right diet. One study found that if you don’t have a balanced endocannabinoid system, you cannot perform high-intensity exercises. If you take CBD, you can increase the level of endorphins in your body during your workout session and improve your level of endurance.
CBD is also known to boost your energy levels. Your diet provides you with the needed energy to complete your workout routine, but if you suffer from conditions that give you nausea, you may find it challenging to eat particular high-energy foods. Here is where cannabidiol comes in. It clears the feeling of nausea, making it more comfortable to eat and provides a boost of energy.
Fiction – You need no recovery
Only because CBD makes your recovery more comfortable doesn’t mean you need to recover after you exercise. Don’t throw caution to the wind because you use supplements because they only support your recovery process, but don’t replace it. Your body needs time to repair the tiny tears that appear in your muscles after you work out. Workout breaks down your muscle fibres to enable them to grow larger and stronger. Workout recovery is scientifically proven to be the only way to see results in your fitness efforts.
When your muscles rebuild, they become stronger, which boosts your overall strength. No supplement or product can eliminate the effect of the natural process. However, you can combine CBD with exercise to lower the discomfort and reduce the recovery time.
Fiction – All CBD products offer the same benefits
You can buy CBD products from multiple sources and in different forms. Always check how reliable the provider is before buying from them because CBD can support your fitness efforts only if it contains the proper amount of cannabinoids. You should also determine what you need CBD for because, as stated earlier, CBD comes in various forms, and each is created to serve a particular need.
If you want to alleviate pain in the muscles, you can use lotions and creams because they allow you to apply the product directly to the affected area. If you need it to lower inflammation, you can use oils or edibles.
Final words
Even if CBD hasn’t been extensively studied in the context of exercise, it can help you during recovery, so you should give it a chance.
Also read: CBD’s Role in Health & Wellness for Women
