Weed and Climbing Training

Marijuana is cropping up in more and more sports. Was climbing ahead of the curve?

I should probably start this with some kind of disclaimer, right? Marijuana is illegal in some places and if you do it they’ll pull off your toenails or something. I don’t advocate breaking the law here for the sake of breaking a training plateau.

But a survey popped up lately looking at weed in sports.

Source: M Roharik Getty Images

Most of us probably remember the Survey Climbing did a couple of years ago with some pro climbers. Starting with the question‘ Do you, or have you ever used marijuana while climbing?’

“Oh yes.” “Yes. It’s been a positive part of my climbing life for over 20 years.” “Short answer: no — not in the act of climbing. Shit is dangerous enough without adding another factor. I have however used it as a recovery tool.”

Names were kept anonymous not to piss off sponsors but I mean, come on, I think we can probably make a few educated guesses.

Not every voice in climbing has spoken positively about it.

“Due to its ergolytic action, the use of cannabis as doping will not help to gain a competitive edge by any means. Cannabis makes the heart work harder and limits sports performance. It increases heart rate and de-creases cardiac stroke volume…Drugs, such as cannabis products, can be very serious in dangerous sports that rely on clear minds, quick reactions and split-second timing”.

And there are some pretty obvious risks if you’re screwing with your decision making when you’re dealing with a potentially dangerous sport in general. Weed can screw with your perception of risk and the attention you spend on something as trivial as, say, tying yourself in.

But the same study goes on to say:

“Cannabis improves sleep and recovery after an event, reduces anxiety and fear and aids the forgetting of negative events such as bad falls and so forth. Cannabis enhances sensory perception, decreases respiratory rate and increases heart rate; increased bronchodilation may improve oxygenation of the tissues”.

Climbing has strong roots in counterculture so it’s not surprising weed has been a fairly common sight in a lot of the climbing gyms I’ve seen. Other sports have more and more stories of weed being used as a performance tool though — were we just ahead of the curve?

A new survey conducted by researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder exposes the extent of the long-covert connection between marijuana and exercise. It found that 82% of marijuana consumers in states where cannabis is legal use it within one hour before or four hours after working out.

It wasn’t the first study to look at athletes using weed to improve performance but it was one of the latest, showing a growing trend.

From diminishing pain and inflammation to improving sleep quality I can certainly see the appeal. Anything which helps you come back to the next days training session is going to have a draw for some climbers.

“When you see cannabis in movies, it’s a 22-year-old kid on the couch playing video games. With the diversity of users that comes with legalization, that’s a stereotype that isn’t accurate anymore, if it ever was.”

The Sports Medicine journal published a study from over a decade ago showing athletes using it to not only relax and recovery between training sessions but also gain a heightened sensory perception. The same study also saw an improvement in lung function and not an impairment as you might have expected.

Unsurprisingly there’s a lot of bias on both sides of the cannabis debate. This is one of the biggest problems — we just don’t have the data yet.

There is research showing weed slows the reflexes and use can cause more fatigue and anxiety — not something you want when you’re hanging by your fingertips a while from your last bolt.

But there’s little doubt it’s seeing a popularity boom across different sports and what little research we do have so far suggests there are at least some benefits to marijuana use. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes.

Some sports have so widely adopted it that it gave birth to the Civilized Games (formerly known as the 420 Games) and there was a widely publicized Brazillian Ju Jitsu competition where everyone was stoned.

Have to admit — I’d probably watch the IFSC event where all the climbers were smoking during the event but, looking at the numbers, I’m willing to bet a fair amount are already using it in between training days.

Whether you’re smoking during your training sessions or not — be sure to check out #Climbing A Training Workbook on Amazon.

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