Morgan English was sitting on the fire escape in her Portland State University apartment, smoking weed, when she felt a pull toward a stationary bicycle. So she walked across the street to the gym. For the first time in her life, she said, exercise didn’t feel like punishment. “It wasn’t about ‘How many miles can I bike? How much resistance can I put on? Can I do this for an hour?’ It was just joyful. Like I was just moving my body and I was doing it for myself … and it truly unlocked a whole new world for me.” After that, English started clandestinely smoking weed in her car before exercise classes, certain her classmates could smell it on her. She wondered if anyone else did the same thing. Turns out, they do. “You have this sense of like, ‘I’m not alone and other people are doing this,’” English said. Now, English owns and teaches classes for Stoned+Toned, a fitness company that blends cannabis and fitness in pursuit of community and a more pleasurable workout.
https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story ... os-angelesMichael French, chair of the health management and policy department at the University of Miami’s business school and author of the study, remembered talking to some of his friends about the findings. The friends, all marathon runners, said they use cannabis to recover after long-distance training. “So they kind of chuckled and said, ‘No surprise there,’” French said. Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder are looking into the same thing. Angela Bryan, a professor of psychology and neuroscience there, said her assumption was that cannabis would decrease one’s motivation to work out, but she’s been surprised by findings that tell a more complex story. “While I’m not ready to conclusively recommend that people start using weed to increase their physical activity, I think it’s pretty clear that it doesn’t hurt,” said Bryan, whose lab has been focused recently on the public health implications of cannabis legalization. Bryan noted her research hasn’t shown an improvement in performance; instead, cannabis users have reported more pleasure — maybe even a runner’s high — after blending cardio and cannabis. Whether people come to cannabis or exercise first, though, is still unknown, Bryan said.
For the non-smokers munching on Alice B Toklas brownies before a workout?