For athletes (and non-athletes), there might not be a more influential product on the rise than cannabidiol.

CBD products are not just the cutting edge of medicine, in my opinion, they are the cutting edge of sports nutrition as well.

In my experience as a professional basketball player, I have learned that muscle/body recovery and dealing with chronic pain are two of the most important tasks that an athlete must handle.

Especially if you want to be a professional athlete, you are going to need to deal with a lot of pain.

Both physical pain, and mental anguish.

Would you like to learn why I believe that CBD products are the future for athletes such as myself?

Read the rest of this article and you will find out!

How Did My Journey with CBD Begin?

My first experience with CBD products was back in the summer of 2017 when I first began researching for new products to use for myself coming out of my latest basketball season.

I have always been a person to try to stay off the cutting edge of all nutritional products, but at this time I did not have a good understanding of CBD yet.

In fact, I hadn’t heard about it much at all!

The first products I purchased were a CBD soap and a roll-on muscle balm.

I used this to help my back muscles recover from training, and I was legitimately surprised how “fresh” I felt each morning.

When I first began using CBD I hadn’t even fully understood its benefits, or how widely I could use it to help myself as an athlete.

The more I learned, the more excited I got!

CBD and Recovering from My Current Back Issue

After a couple months of use, I headed out for my next basketball season.

I was scheduled to play my season in Bulgaria, although that has been a little bit derailed at this point.

In 2018 CBD has been officially removed from the World Anti-Doping Agency Banned Substance list, but at the time I left to start my season this had not happened.

As it happened, I suffered a crushing injury just about 4 weeks into my new year.

I suffered a Spinal Compression Fracture, and I would rate it as the 2nd most painful injury of my career.

After about 6 weeks of seeing if rest would be enough for me to continue playing again, I made the choice to leave my team and come home.

As soon as I got home though, I knew it was time to put the full power of CBD products behind my treatment.

It has been about 4 months now that I have been using CBD to help my health from this injury, and I couldn’t imagine life otherwise.

Why is CBD Important for Athletes?

For athletes, there are numerous reasons that CBD is possibly the most important product out right now.

On its most basic level, CBD is an amazing pain-reliever.

For example; while I was resting in Bulgaria and waiting to see if my back would calm down enough to play again, I was using both non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications, as well as corticosteroid injections.

The combination of these two injections did not match the pain relief that CBD has brought me on its own!

Furthermore, these NSAIDs and corticosteroid injections come with nasty side effects!

I remember days in a row where I could not sleep because I was feeling jittery and had constant sweating from the injections.

Along with this NSAIDs have been proven to have dangerous long-term effects on your internal organs, and a new study has shown that long-term use of Ibuprofen can be associated with male infertility!

For many athletes, these are legitimate concerns!

NSAIDs are the less-dangerous, but still-dangerous, a precursor to opioid pain medications.

Anyone who has ever played sports at the high school or college level surely understands how many Ibuprofens or Tylenol you need to take to get through a whole season.

If you are an athlete who continues to play their sport for 10-15 years, this will ultimately wear on you in a very dangerous way.

Using CBD capsules or tablets can become a 100% direct replacement for these other pain medications and do a wide variety of good for athletes throughout the world.

I believe in CBD, and I am sure that anyone who has tried CBD feels the same way!

What About Topical CBD Products?

Topical CBD products are just as important as ingestible ones for athletes because in general topical treatments can work so well!

While I was playing in Belgium during my 3rd professional season I found Fastum gel, which is the name of the topical form of the NSAID ketoprofen.

Although I would recommend any athlete use this topical ketoprofen instead of a product like IcyHot (which does absolutely nothing to treat your body long-term), topical CBD products are by far the more effective choice.

Companies are making a variety of different topical CBD products which include some for before sleep, massage lotions, “wake-up” topical products, and more!

The extent to which topical CBD products can be used for athletes is legitimately endless.

Whether it is simply massaging sore muscles after a long day of training or speeding up recovery from injuries such as my own, topical CBD has a huge future in athletics!

What is Next for CBD In Athletics?

As far as implementing CBD products in the lives of athletes, having cannabidiol removed from the World Anti-Doping Agency Banned Substance list was legitimately only the first step.

The next step is knowledge, and following that comes product-specific development.

I think that spreading the word about the benefits of CBD is as important as anything else at the moment, because if I didn’t know about this myself 7 months ago- I am sure there are tons of people out there who do not know enough about it.

CBD is a natural solution to the daily stress, anxiety and chronic pain that athletes deal with every single day.

CBD fights inflammation and helps stabilize the body during times of intense stress.

It can help recovery from injuries quicker and help you get through each day more pain-free.

In the future, I would love to see CBD products become more “normalized,” and involved more often in a variety of other nutritional products.

I have seen CBD protein powders and CBD water emerge, but there is still a way to go in terms of product development.

However, I strongly believe we are on the right track currently.

CBD has been extremely influential for myself in recovering from this back injury, and I am sure it will be just as important part of my growth and success in the future!

If you would like to learn more about myself and my journey with CBD products, you can check out https://adamkempfitness.com/medical-marijuana-cbd-oil!

About the Author:

Adam Kemp is a professional basketball player who is in his 4th year of playing basketball in Europe.

In 2015, Adam played for the Detroit Pistons in the NBA Summer League.

Along with this wife, Adam has become a strong advocate for the holistic health benefits of CBD and hemp products.

Together, they are working to normalize the culture of CBD and hemp use, so that a wider-range of people understand the many benefits of these amazing products.

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