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360nycsport-blog · 7 years

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Marijuana Gym

Jim McAlpine, self described “world’s foremost expert on cannabis and fitness” plans to open the world’s first “cannabis gym” in San Francisco this Summer or Fall. Designed and equipped as a traditional gym and wellness center, Power Plant Fitness will also allow members to consume cannabis in the gym before or after their workouts. According to McAlpine, “If you use it right, cannabis takes the things you love and lets (sic) you love them more. With fitness, that can help get you into the zone, into eye-of-the-tiger mode.” There is little scientific research detailing the effects of THC on athletic performance, but many athletes and several elite athletes are known to participate in it's use. Arnold Schwarzenegger was filmed during Mr. Olympia training, Michael Phelps, Gold Medalist, and many other athletes have stated that they feel the use of cannabis improves their workout sessions. World Class triathlete Clifford Drusinsky was quoted in 2014 Men’s Journal about how eating a THC energy bar before training allowed him to get through his tough workouts. “Marijuana relaxes me and allows me to go into a controlled, meditational place,” he said. “When I get high, I train smarter and focus on form.” The Journal of Sports Medicine has published several scholarly articles by sports medicine physicians and kinesthesiologists, stating that marijuana does not increase strength, in fact most studies done with marijuana and athletes places those athletes in the underperforming category [1]. but there are few if any studies that involve THC use and pain during training. McAlpine plans to correct this oversight by “offering cannabis performance assessments, in which trainers help determine how the plant can help an athlete work out before guiding them through weed-assisted fitness plans.” Cannabis-friendly Gym? McAlpine says the gym will allow members to consume their own cannabis on-site, and even purchase Power Plant’s own line of edibles, which McAlpine claims are designed for “pre-workout focus and post-workout recovery.” But McAlpine further states that "It (Power Plant) won't be a place to get high and just screw around, we are focused on the athletic side, not the cannabis side." McAlpine feels that Power Plant Fitness looks to cannabis as a tool for focus and recovery. New members will take a "cannabis performance assessment" under the supervision of trained staff to determine the "most optimal ways to consume." Some might find a bite out a pot brownie gives them the push they need to complete a circuit training workout, while others find it knocks them on the floor. "We’ll be helping our members figure out how best for them to ingest their cannabis." Several cannabis experts have reservations concerning the Power Plant Fitness, cannabis gym concept, the majority of those concerns are safety related. The most vocal is Dr. Yasmin Hurd, Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai New York, This idea is “shocking to me, cannabis decreases reaction time, it definitely impacts motor function. I don’t see how encouraging intoxication during workouts is something positive.” Hurd also believes not being able to feel pain while working out may lead to dangerous instances of overexertion, overtraining and overuse symptoms. Those who medicate prior to their workout “could work through their pain threshold in a way that could harm themselves because they are tearing muscles and they’re not going to feel them,” she says. “That to me is the main worry.” Dr. Hurd is not the sole critic of marijuana use in a gym setting, Dr. Ed Bednarczyk, Department Chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice at University at Buffalo is also concerned with safety, “I don’t see that the safety tradeoff is worth the benefit you may possibly get. My biggest worry is that people are ignoring the cardiovascular effects of cannabinoids. THC increases both your heart rate and blood pressure. That’s going to happen with exercise as well, especially when you’re lifting. Hypertension is not a good thing, and doing something that increases your blood pressure or heart rate independent of your exercise isn’t something you’d want to do.” The Effect Of Cannabis On Exercise Cannabis, and it's active ingredient THC have long been known to alleviate pain, decrease nausea, and improve mood, but how does it affect exercise? Is it safe to workout under the influence? Are their health benefits or is this as dangerous as taking shots of vodka in the gym? The few loosely related eye-hand coordination studies suggest that smoking or ingesting marijuana decreases reaction time, disrupts hand-eye coordination and perception, and divides attention, and these potentially dangerous effects can last up to 36 hours after usage. [2] In a study measuring differential blood flow in the brain, the subjects brains were imaged by Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to measure the immediate effects of smoking marijuana. In this study, subjects performed tasks before and after smoking cannabis. After smoking, there was a substantial reduction of blood flow to the temporal lobe, an area important for focused tasks, and this reduced blood flow correlated with impaired performance. [3] Summary Your level of support for this subject will be greatly influenced by your personal feelings about marijuana use. But regardless of your feelings, you should see a great need for additional research to possibly identify positive (or negative) effects of THC use on athletic training and performance.

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