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Let It Snow: CBD For Winter Sport Athletes and Enthusiasts

Do you remember your first day on the slopes? Maybe you remember the day after even better…sore muscles, bruised bumm and all. Skiing and snowboarding are some of winters favorite activities, and as the season approaches, the preparation starts. Whether you are adding new skis, poles or bindings to your arsenal, perhaps you should consider adding CBD to the mix too. 

Winter sports and activities, especially skiing and snowboarding, can take a toll on the body. Whether it’s just over worked muscles or a bruise or two from a fall, the day following your mountain adventure could be a pretty sore one. CBD, also known as cannabidiol, has been shown to demonstrate anti-inflammatory properties that can lead to pain management and reduction. Having CBD ready-to-go in your winter coat pocket could be a life-saver for getting you back on the mountain in good time. 

What Is CBD?

CBD, also known as cannabidiol, is one of many compounds found in cannabis and hemp plants. Cannabidiol is still in early stages of scientific research and studies, but thus far the anecdotal evidence is looking promising. CBD works directly with the human endocannabinoid system or ECS. This direct interaction can lead to reduced pain and inflammation through CBD’s communication with receptors transmitting messages to the brain. CBD attaches itself to the CB1 and CB2 receptors in the ECS which are responsible for sending transmissions to and from the brain and central nervous system. The ECS is largely responsible for bodily functions like mood, appetite, pain management, sleep and more. The interaction CBD has with the ECS and its receptors can go far beyond potential pain management for the avid winter sportsman. 

How Could CBD Benefit Your Ski Season? 

• Pain & Inflammation Control: CBD can be a great recovery tool for skiers and boarders with sore muscles. Use a CBD topical after a day on the mountain for relief, and/or take some CBD oil before you start your run to keep the pain at bay all day.
• Stress & Anxiety: Whether you are an adrenaline junky or not, winter sports can surely cause a thrill, but sometimes an accompanying factor is stress. If it’s your first day on the mountain or you are anxious about tackling that new run, CBD can help to keep the nerves at bay while allowing you head to stay clear. Unlike CBD’s cousin THC, there are no psychoactive side effects to CBD. 
• Sleep & Prepare: Having a good day on the slopes usually means you had a decent sleep the night before. Lacking sleep can lead to injury or worse when skiing, so waking refreshed is important. CBD can help to promote a restful sleep, leaving you ready for the day ahead. 

CBD to Ease Exercise Inflammation & Soreness

Whether your brand new and facing your first bunny slope, or you are carving through fresh powder on a black diamond run, there is nothing quite as thrilling as gliding over the snow and feeling the fresh air in your face. The excitements of either sport can be a bit daunting for new patrons, but the worry about next day debilitating soreness can be put at ease with CBD. 

CBD is one of many compounds found in sativa cannabis and hemp plants. Cannabidiol is in early stages of scientific research and studies, but thus far the benefits are looking promising. CBD works in direct conjunction with the human endocannabinoid system or ECS. This direct interaction can lead to reduced pain and inflammation through CBD’s communication with receptors transmitting messages to the brain. CBD attaches itself to the CB1 and CB2 receptors in the ECS which are responsible for sending transmissions to the brain and central nervous system and could aid in reducing aches, pains and inflammation. CBD can be utilized through a variety of methods to promote pain management and relief for winter sports athletes and enthusiast. 

CBD Products for Winter Sports Enthusiasts

There are a variety of products available today when it comes to CBD. Some of the most popular are CBD oils and tinctures, gummies and edibles, and topicals like creams. CBD oils are great for rapid relief, consumed sublingually and enter the bloodstream almost immediately. CBD edibles are a great choice for on-the-go consumption, usually perfectly dosed so you can find relief mountain-side if necessary. CBD topicals are useful for targeted application, meaning you can apply them to specific areas that are in need of relief. With the wide variety of CBD product options available, finding a reliable source is an important factor to consider. 

Tribe CBD was created with the active lifestyle in mind. With quality and care, from seed to sale, Tribe CBD has a variety of full-spectrum CBD products that perfect for winter sports athletes. From their Cold Therapy CBD Cream, great for targeted topical application to their CBD Energy Shots, made with caffeine and ginseng for an added boost. 

Turn to Tribe CBD for your winter sports preparation. Whether you are looking for a quality full-spectrum CBD oil or something a little more unique, like CBD Sleep Shots or CBD Energy Shots, Tribe CBD has something for everyone excited for the snow to fly. Consuming CBD before you hit the slopes could keep the pain of a bumpy run at bay.  Similarly, using a CBD topical or taking a dose of Tribe CBD after your day on the slopes, could help your body recover faster and allow you to get back on the mountain as soon as possible. To learn more about Tribe CBD and to view a full list of their third-party tested CBD products, click here. 

The news and editorial staffs of the Bay Area News Group had no role in this post’s preparation.

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But between pliés and pirouettes, Doug Goodwin, the team’s director of high school relations, called CJ’s father, Curtis, and everything fell apart.

Auburn had been CJ’s dream school for as long as he could remember. He loved the campus, loved the Tiger blue and orange, loved the rivalry with Alabama. But after a dominant senior season as a safety at Warner Robins High School in Georgia, he barely was being recruited.

His father sent his film to Auburn coaches on a whim. The Tigers thought he was such a steal, they offered him a roster spot in January and said he could play his way into a scholarship. Word spread, and Warner Robins started to celebrate its prized defensive back.

And then the questions started: How would Auburn handle CJ’s medical condition, epilepsy, and the medication he takes to control it, a hemp-based cannabis oil?

In April, Goodwin asked for Harris’ complete medical records. He called back weeks later, in the middle of ballet. CJ couldn’t come to Auburn if he kept taking the cannabis oil, he told Curtis.

“He said, ‘It hurts us because we really like CJ as a player and he was going to do good things for us,’ ” Curtis Harris told The Washington Post in an interview.

Auburn players run through drills during NCAA college football practice, Friday, Aug. 3, 2018, in Auburn, Ala. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)

Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said in June that Harris’s medication was not what caused the football team to withdraw the roster invitation.

“He wasn’t cleared by our medical staff. That was really the bottom line,” Malzahn said. “It didn’t have anything to do with anything else like some people reported.”

CJ had his first seizure as a seventh grader in 2013 and didn’t have another until three years later, when he was a sophomore in high school. But when the episodes returned, he’d sometimes have multiple seizures each month.

During one episode, he fell while strolling down the sidewalk and cut his head. Curtis rushed his son to the hospital, where CJ had another.

“If you see your child have a seizure, it’s hard to watch,” Curtis said. “You don’t know what’s going on. You just want it to stop.”

Doctors prescribed Keppra, an anticonvulsive medication, but the substance made Harris irritable. Curtis dropped his son off at school each day and stared at his phone until Warner Robins’ lunch period hoping he wouldn’t get a call from the school nurse. Mornings were CJ’s most vulnerable time.

Doctors kept upping his doses – at one point, he took four pills in the morning and two at night, and a missed dose could result in more episodes – but the seizures continued.

Desperate for a better solution, CJ switched to cannabis oil, which he squirts beneath his tongue with a syringe and waits for it to dissolve, in January 2017. He takes a dose every six hours. He hasn’t had an episode since. Doctors were so pleased with the results, they told him to keep playing football and there was no reason he couldn’t play in college.

“Any time you have a situation like that, you got to be concerned about it, but I never, not one time, saw anything close to him having any sort of episode or health problem,” Warner Robins coach Mike Chastain told The Post. “When you get that paperwork in, you’re a little concerned, but I never had any problems with him at all.”

Still, CJ wasn’t getting much recruiting attention, unusual for a defensive back who stands 6-foot-1, weighs 201 pounds, runs the 40-yard dash in 4.58 seconds and excelled both defensively and as a running back for one of Georgia’s top teams.

“I couldn’t believe none of the college coaches would recruit him,” Curtis said. “He’s a good kid. He’s a great student, teachers love him, he’s a great player, got the size. I had no idea why no one was coming to talk to him.”

Neither did Auburn – which knew about his epilepsy diagnosis when it offered him a roster spot, Curtis said – until it reviewed his medical records.

That night after ballet practice, Curtis stood in the doorway of CJ’s bedroom for 20 minutes trying to find the words to tell his son his college football dream was over.

“Once he told me that, all my dreams were crushed,” CJ said. “I knew, if Auburn was my dream school and they won’t let me play, none of the other schools would take me either.”

The NCAA bans consumption of THC, the active chemical in marijuana and hemp that causes a high. It classifies the substance in its drug-testing handbook as an “illicit drug” and does not have a medical exemption, even though medical marijuana is legal when prescribed by a doctor in Georgia and Alabama, where Auburn in located.

The father and son spent the summer traveling to recruiting camps around the South hoping another coach would think enough of CJ’s talent to fight the NCAA. They went to camps at Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Miami. At each university, coaches told CJ pretty much the same thing: “I hope they clear you, and we’ll talk.”

“It’s kind of heartbreaking when I hear it,” CJ said. “They like me during the drills, but they hear my story and they say, ‘That’s too bad.’”

By mid-July, Curtis was tired of hearing it. He took CJ to a family doctor to get tested for THC, hoping just maybe he’d test below the 15 nanograms per milliliter threshold proscribed by the NCAA.

Cannabinoids “were present,” the doctor wrote in the test results, a copy of which was provided to The Post, “but no THC metabolite is detected even down to the cut off of 15ng/ml and below.”

“I was thinking, all my prayers, God answered them,” CJ said when he read the results. “I thought I was clear. I didn’t think the NCAA would have a problem.”

And the NCAA indeed doesn’t have a problem, but college coaches still do. Multiple recruiters have told Curtis they risk too much offering CJ a roster spot when the test was conducted by a family doctor and not by a lab that works with the NCAA.

That leaves the Harris family hamstrung; the NCAA contracts with anti-doping agency Drug Free Sport to administer its banned substances policy, and Drug Free Sport does not test individual athletes.

“We are essentially client driven,” said Mark Bockelman, the agency’s vice president of collegiate and amateur sport. “We do not take walk-in individuals to do testing.”

Additionally, the NCAA only accepts test results from World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited laboratories. There are only two such labs in the United States, one in Salt Lake City and one in Los Angeles.

“If the NCAA will test him and clear him, then coaches will come recruit him,” Curtis Harris said. “It’s easy for the coaches to blame the NCAA right now and for the NCAA to blame the coaches.”

In the meantime, CJ enrolled at East Coast Prep in Monterey, Massachusetts, for this school year, where he can take college-level courses, play a full football season and retain all four years of NCAA eligibility while waiting for some sort of official green light or for a coach to offer a roster spot while allowing him to take his medication.

“Every day I wake up,” he said, “and the first thing that comes to my mind is that I have to be ready for that call from a college coach and I pray that someone takes a chance on me.”

Under the change announced Wednesday, the BIG3 becomes what’s believed to be the first professional sports league in the United States to allow use of the marijuana ingredient for pain management and recovery.

The BIG3 says its decision follows the removal of CBD from the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of banned substances earlier this year.

The league says in a statement: “Despite many states around the country making efforts to decriminalize or legalize cannabis, both medicinally and recreationally, professional athletes who could benefit medicinally are prevented from doing so by league outdated mandates.”

The second season of the league co-founded by entertainer Ice Cube began last week in Houston. It has a stop Friday in Chicago. The league features players like Amare Stoudemire, Baron Davis, Kenyon Martin and Nate Robinson.