CBD for Muscle Recovery

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CBD for Sport Performance & Muscle Recovery

Cannabidiol (CBD), active lifestyles and sport go hand-in-hand.? CBD is great in helping you get optimal benefits from your training and workouts. It also helps greatly with muscles recovery after intense activity. As any athlete or active person knows, performance and recovery are interdependent and multifaceted.? Remember that rest days are just as important as active days. Muscle recovery is a vital to repairing damaged muscle, restoring hormonal balance and helping your body create new energy stores for your next workout session.

About Sport Performance & Recovery

The relationship between cbd and muscle recovery and fatigue (1), as well as its impact on performance has long attracted the interest of sport science.  

Scientists find that an adequate balance between training and competition load along with recovery is essential for achieving high-level performance. 

This is because the body adapts to the stress of exercise, with the actual training effect taking place during rest.

Any physical activity causes changes in your body. This includes the depletion of energy stores (muscle glycogen), a loss of fluids, and the breakdown of muscle tissue.

The muscle breakdown are microscopic damage to the millions of proteins that make up your muscle cells.  These tiny ?tears? that causes muscles to be sore after a workout.

It is during recovery time that your body replenishes its energy stores. This needed time also re-hydrates, as well as repairs damaged muscle fibers and proteins. 

Without recovery time, your body cannot repair and replenish. Without this, your body will continue to breakdown from intensive and excessive exercise.

Symptoms of over-training

Symptoms of over-training often occur from a lack of recovery time.

Signs of over-training can vary between different people. 

However, there are many common symptoms that include the following:

Physical Symptoms

• Leg soreness, general aches, and pains
• Pain in muscles and joints
• Decrease in training capacity/intensity
• Increased incidence of injuries
• Longer recovery from injuries

Emotional & Miscellaneous Symptoms

• Difficulty with sleeping or resting, and loss of sleep
• Moodiness and irritability
• General malaise
• Feelings of ?staleness?
• Depression and anxiety

CBD for Sport & recovery

It seems like everyone from high-level athletes in the NFL, NHL, NBA, and UFC are using CBD products.

Many pro-athletes like MMA fighter Conor McGregor being avid proponents and die-hard advocates. 

Increasingly, they are using it to help them focus during competitions, recover faster between workouts as well as after events.

Faster recovery also means they?re back to training sooner, giving them an edge over their competition.

The reason for CBD?s popularity as a performance and post-workout recovery supplement is because of its wide range of purported health benefits, including anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and muscle relaxant effects. 

Similarly, CBD may also help performance and recovery by supporting sleep, combatting stress, and even optimize protein synthesis and stem cell differentiation in muscle tissue.

CBD & Muscle Tension

One of the characteristic symptoms of DOMS is muscle tension.

When it comes to injuries, tension in the muscles surrounding the affected area can make the pain much worse, which is why doctors often prescribe muscle relaxants like benzodiazepines. 

These work via the GABA receptors (1), the key regulators of muscle relaxation with CBD having similar effects on GABA and central benzodiazepine receptors but without the side-effects and risk of dependence.

CBD, Glutamate, Glycine & Pain

Pain is the enemy of any athlete, and can make it difficult to get back into action, and causing discomfort during and between training. 

CBD is well-known for its analgesic properties. 

CBD works for pain relief through three primary mechanisms. 

Firstly, CBD can inhibit pain transmission in the spinal cord and brain. 

Secondly, CBD can reduce inflammatory messenger activity, and thirdly also lower your sensitivity to pain by suppressing ?3 GlyRs receptors and TRPV1 pain receptors.

CBD, Prostaglandins, Oxidative Stress & Inflammation

DOMS is characterized by inflammation and is actually designed to help damaged muscle fibers recover by bringing blood flow to the area and delivering enzymes and oxygen along with it. 

However, the inflammatory response can also cause damage to larger, non-affected regions of muscle and joints that lead to a slower recovery process.

Researchers have shown that CBD?s can help reduce inflammation and pain by decreasing the activity of the enzyme cyclooxygenase by inhibiting the release of the prostaglandins responsible for your body?s inflammatory response similarly to NSAIDs like Ibuprofen and Naproxen.

CBD can also help fight the associated oxidative stress of inflammation by exerting an immunosuppressive effect on the cells that play a role in inflammation.

CBD & Sleep

A few of the most important aspects of cbd and muscle recovery happen while we sleep, including restoring damaged proteins, removing cellular debris, converting lactic acid to glucose and stimulating the differentiation of stem cells into new muscle fibers. 

Similarly, without proper sleep, sport performance is affected. Scientists have found that CBD can increase total sleep time, improve your ability to fall asleep, provide you with the best sleep as well as improve and promote REM sleep that is vital to cognitive and physical performance during training, competition and recovery.

CBD Products for Sport Performance & Muscle Recovery

As with anything health related, it is important to always choose a high-quality product when using CBD for pain. 

It is also important to keep on taking it regularly to experience full benefits.

CBD Oils & Tinctures:

For ongoing performance, maintenance and recovery, we recommend the daily use of a full-spectrum CBD oil or tincture.

Edibles:

Continuous micro-dosing with a discreet product like high potency CBD gummies can be a discreet and effective way of maintaining performance during events and improving recovery times afterwards.

Vape Pens:

For acute flare-ups of pain and/or inflammation during or after training, vaping CBD can provide almost immediate relief due to its fast onset of action. 

Topical Treatments:  A specially formulated CBD cream will deliver the CBD directly to the affected area and provide the best localized pain relief.

For more information on CBD for Muscle Recovery, click on the links below:

• CBD muscle rub
• Is CBD lotion good for sore muscles?
• CBD for Sleep
• Carpal Tunnel Surgery