On an April afternoon last year, I took off up the much-too-steep hill on my street for a three-mile run in Little Rock’s Hillcrest neighborhood.
I’d been on a fitness kick for a while and had been running regularly after I embarked on a series of stories about interesting workouts around the city. At various times in these creatively designed workouts, I had worn an electric suit that shocked me into shape, rode a bike and a rowing machine in a steamy sauna, and even tried my hand at pole dancing, which I found to be way harder than it looked.
Then my editor spotted an article in The New York Times about people pairing cannabis with exercise. I figured I’d give it a shot despite being pretty much the furthest thing from a regular weed user.
As I laced up my shoes, I drank a Sipz cannabis seltzer. My grapefruit-flavored drink included 2mg — a tiny amount — of hemp-derived psychoactive THC. Given my lack of experience with cannabis, this endeavor was a little bit outside my comfort zone — hence the baby dose. I worried that anything stronger might have left me lying on the floor or addressing unwanted dizziness.
This drink and others like it were legal at the time in Arkansas even without a medical marijuana card and could be bought in CBD stores, restaurants and smoke shops.
I finished the drink in about 15 minutes and did some stretching while I waited for the effects of the THC to settle into my system. I had planned to start running at 4 p.m. before deciding to start at exactly 4:20. Appropriate, I thought.
Before I began, I felt a little lighter and maybe a little floaty, but nothing extreme. Once I hit the road, I noticed I went through the first mile a little faster than on a previous run, despite a continuous headwind. Later in the run, I noticed my mouth seemed a little — I don’t know — cottony? Was that related to my pre-race beverage? My breathing was a little labored, too, but I was also running up hills and pushing myself, so I couldn’t say if that was related or not, either.
Near the end of my run, I noticed I felt good and was running faster, although that part of the run was all flat or downhill. In the end, I had completed my three-mile route 41 seconds faster than a sober run from two days before.
Can I say the beverage helped me run faster or with less effort? No. Can I conclude that it didn’t help me? No, I can’t quite say that, either. I can, however, say the drink — even at a small dose — relaxed me and didn’t seem to get in the way.
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I’m not the only one experimenting with cannabis and fitness, although the reasons for experimentation — and the results — are varied.
A few books address the topic of cannabis and exercise, but there isn’t a ton of them and some seem more legitimate than others. “Runner’s High: How a Movement of Cannabis-Fueled Athletes Is Changing the Science of Sports” has been on my mind ever since I saw it on the shelf at Barnes & Noble. And, while it doesn’t seem to address psychoactive THC, I was intrigued when I discovered that former NFL running back Tiki Barber wrote the foreword for “The Athlete’s Guide to CBD.”
Matt Shansky, chief operating officer and managing partner of ReLeaf Center Dispensary and Farm in Bentonville, spent about a decade in the fitness industry before entering the medical marijuana business. A college football player who earned a degree in kinesiology and a certification in sports nutrition, Shanksy worked as a personal trainer.
Shansky said research on the relationship between cannabis and exercise is limited so a lot of the information on the topic is still very anecdotal. But he hears a lot about people pairing cannabis and fitness.
“You are seeing more and more athletes coming out and publicly acknowledging that they are utilizing cannabis as a tool now,” he said.
Former Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams’ cannabis use is well-established and he’s got a line of marijuana products called Highsman. Three former NFL players, including irascible quarterback Jim McMahon and offensive lineman Kyle Turley, promote the cannabis brand Revenant, and McMahon says the drug has helped him avoid opioids. Former NBA All-Star Gary Payton has a cannabis strain he promotes for overall wellness after seeing his mother struggle with cancer.
Some athletes make use of cannabis in an attempt to improve performance (like running faster), although there’s not much evidence to support that, Shansky said.
But both high-level athletes and Regular Joes use cannabis for increasing focus, decreasing pain sensitivity, improving recovery, soothing inflammation and tamping down anxiety and insomnia.
“(Sleep) is one of the more overlooked aspects of recovery,” Shansky said. “We don’t think to put an emphasis on sleep. That is when our body is repairing.”
While research is limited, some academics are trying to get a handle on the attitudes and relationships that may exist between marijuana and the gym.
J. Derek Kingsley, a professor in the exercise science and exercise physiology program at Kent State University near Akron, Ohio, has been looking into the matter for about five years. When a student complained about someone who smelled like weed at the gym, Kingsley wanted to learn more.
Kingsley developed a questionnaire that determined about 13% of visitors to the university gym had used cannabis beforehand. Kingsley noted that study was performed a year before Ohio legalized marijuana recreationally — they only had medical marijuana at the time — and he suspects that number has increased.
Kingsley has expanded his study to find out more about folks who use cannabis before, during and after exercise and has begun to study ultramarathoners.
“I assumed they were stoned when they made that decision,” Kingsley jokingly said of the runners who enter races of 100 miles or more.
On a serious note, Kingsley, who uses cannabis for pain management following a fall during an Ohio winter, said he doesn’t believe cannabis is a performance enhancer. He does believe it helps with athletic recovery by helping with sleep, decreasing pain and reducing inflammation.
“If you can kill the pain and sleep better, then you are back in the gym giving 100% in a shorter amount of time,” he said.
Taylor Ewell, a doctoral student in the human bioenergetics program at Colorado State University, recently led several cannabis studies, including one examining the impact of a 10mg edible on different types of exercise intensity. The conclusion was that cannabis did not improve performance, but it didn’t worsen performance, either.
Like others, Ewell noted there hasn’t been much research on cannabis and exercise because it’s hard to do with cannabis remaining federally illegal despite what freedoms the plant might enjoy under state laws.
During a recent interview, Ewell noted a study from the University of Colorado that found cannabis improved mood and pain during exercise but that runners ran 30 seconds per mile slower when taking it.
One takeaway from those results could be that there’s no point in using cannabis for exercise if it doesn’t positively impact performance. But there’s another way to look at the data. If cannabis doesn’t impact performance, then perhaps athletic organizations (like a number of professional sports leagues, governing bodies and anti-doping oversight agencies) shouldn’t prohibit cannabis as a performance-enhancing drug.
While some sports leagues have softened their approach to cannabis use, athletes who partake can still face consequences. In 2020, the NFL stopped suspending players for cannabis use and, last year, increased the threshold for a positive test. But players can still be fined thousands of dollars for a first offense and more for additional infractions.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency, which regulates U.S. Olympic sports in accordance with international guidelines, prohibits cannabis use. The international regulators cited a study that said there wasn’t enough evidence to prove cannabis is performance-enhancing but they did find it poses a health risk and violates the spirit of the sport.
Tara Davis-Woodhall, a professional track and field athlete who trained in Arkansas, was stripped of a national long jump title in 2023 after a positive cannabis test at a competition. She was given a one-month suspension.
Cannabis has grown in acceptance nationally, as 39 states now have some form of legal marijuana program. But Ewell said he found that athletes still keep their cannabis use quiet.
“Even among the athlete community, I think it’s an underground thing,” Ewell said. “It’s not broadcast publicly very often.”
Despite what cannabis might or might not do in terms of performance, if taking it gets you to exercise, then that’s what’s important, Ewell said.
“Just for a regular person, if it makes you feel better and makes you experience less pain, then have it, because it’s not going to really increase your performance or decrease your performance, but it will get you out there exercising,” Ewell said.