CBD and Muscle Growth: Can it Help?

If you’re trying to lead a healthy lifestyle, chances are you’re including exercise into your daily (or almost daily) routine. Along with a good diet and sleep routine, physical activity is imperative to keeping our bodies at their best. Your fitness goals might also include strength training and building muscle. If that’s the case, then you’re probably doing all that you can to ensure that your routine is contributing to muscle growth. But are you really doing all that you can? What about adding CBD to your strength training routine? If you’re interested in the relationship between CBD and muscle growth, then keep reading because we’re going to discuss:

• How your muscles repair and strengthen
• How CBD can contribute to muscle growth
• How and when you can use CBD for muscle growth
• Who can use CBD for muscle growth

How Muscles Repair, Recover, and Grow

Building muscles is a process, and it takes time to get into a good routine!

In order to build muscle mass, you have to make sure you’ve got a good routine in place. That means knowing what muscles you want to target, when to target them, and how to fuel your body. Challenging your muscles with increased weights and a variety of different exercises are both good ways to ensure you’re working towards your muscle growth goals. Although your age, sex, and genetics all have a role to play regarding the rate at which you can strengthen and build muscle, every human contributes to muscle growth the same way.

When we push ourselves to take on that extra weight, or to do one more rep, our muscles are strained by the additional push. This causes tears in the muscles, which sets off the response to repair the damaged tissue. You’ve probably felt the pain and soreness that typically accompanies this repair and recovery process 24-48 hours after your intense workout. This is your muscles recovery period, which is fusing the damaged muscle fibers together--eventually increasing your muscle mass. Certain hormones also contribute to how your muscles strengthen, but going through the consistent process of pushing your muscles--and allowing for recovery--is essentially how you can expect to build muscles.

There are ways to optimize your strength training routine, however, allowing you muscles to recover so you can push yourself further towards your goals. Adding CBD oil to your regimen might be just the component you need to get to the next level.

How Does CBD Help with Muscle Growth?

Will adding CBD help you reach your muscle growth goals?

As we mentioned earlier, everyone builds muscles at their own rate, and depending on different factors, some people will see their strength increase faster than others. How much you’re pushing yourself and how you’re fueling your body can also have a significant impact on how fast (or not so fast) you see your muscles strengthen. CBD has become popular among the bodybuilding and fitness communities for a variety of reasons, most significantly because of its effects on muscle growth. After any intense fitness session, the work isn’t completely done yet, because this is when your muscles go to work repairing. It is in this important stage that CBD can benefit those looking for muscle growth. How? Well let’s take a look at how CBD can have an influence on your strength building routine:

• Eases inflammation. After you workout your muscles have experienced damage, which immediately causes inflammation. While this is all normal and a part of muscle recovery and growth, CBD has anti-inflammatory properties and can help ease this inflammation, possibly helping your muscles repair and recover faster. CBD not only works with muscle inflammation, but can help with inflammation in the joints as well.
• Anti-catabolic properties. Taking CBD may help regulate hormones, specifically by keeping cortisol lower. This helps with protein synthesis during a workout, which can increase muscle growth.
• Assists with muscle recovery. Anyone looking to build muscles knows that the recovery is just as important as the workout itself. It is here that your muscles are repairing and strengthening. When muscles can repair faster, you can get back to your strength training routine quicker.
• Can reduce pain. In addition to its anti-inflammatory qualities, CBD is also known to have analgesic characteristics as well. We’ve all experienced sore, painful muscles after a workout, which sometimes get in the way of our workout routine. No one enjoys working out when they’re sore or in pain. By adding CBD to your regimen, you may be able to reduce the amount of pain you feel in your muscles, allowing you to get back right at it and continue on your muscle strengthening journey.
• Help with restful sleep. Our bodies do a lot of recovering while we sleep, and restful sleep is crucial not only to a healthy lifestyle, but to reaching your muscle building goals. CBD may be able to help by contributing to a feeling of calmness (especially if taken before bed) that will allow you to get a good night’s sleep. 

How and When Can You Use CBD for Muscle Growth?

There are a variety of ways to incorporate CBD into your strength training regimen

If you’ve chosen to include CBD into your workout routine, you’re in luck, because there are a variety of ways in which you can. Experiment with a few, and see which one works best for your lifestyle. CBD for muscle growth is typically taken orally or applied topically. If you’re interested in a topical like a balm, lotion, or oil, you’ll be able to apply the CBD directly to the muscles that need it most. A balm like Seventh Sense’s Intensive Muscle Balm is packed with 1,000mg of hemp-derived CBD along with arnica, methol, and wintergreen essential oils that deliver cool relief to your muscles. One of the pros of using a topical like a balm is that you can apply it directly to the muscles that need it. If you’re not getting the relief you need, then simply reapply. 

If you’d rather administer CBD orally, you can choose from capsules, edibles, or drops. CBD drops go under the tongue and will enter the bloodstream very quickly, getting your muscles relief so that they can begin the recovery process, and you can keep on track with your muscle building goals. Edibles and capsules first go through the digestive system, but although they may take longer to reach the bloodstream, you may feel relief that can last longer with this option.

This leads us to the other question, when is the best time to take CBD for muscle growth--before a workout or after? Well, the choice is really up to you, and you can even do both. Since gummies and capsules take longer to release, you might want to take these before, so that you can feel their effects afterwards. Or, if you’re a little sore but still want to do strength training, apply a balm or lotion to the muscles in order to make your workout more enjoyable. Balms and lotions are also great post-workout since you can easily apply them to the muscles you targeted. 

Can Anyone Use CBD for Muscle Growth?

CBD is not just for bodybuilders!

CBD can be taken by anyone who is looking to strengthen their muscles, and wants to stick to a muscle building routine. You don’t have to be a bodybuilder or a fitness guru (although plenty of those incorporate it into their regimen!) to get the benefits of CBD. You can make it a part of your daily lifestyle, or you can take it as you need it. 

If you want to see muscle growth, it takes determination to keep showing up and keep on pushing the limits. CBD may be able to help you reach your fitness goals by helping your muscles recover, decreasing your soreness, and allowing your muscles to recover with a good night’s sleep.