CBD & Golf: Discover How CBD Could Improve Your Game

How Can CBD Improve Your Golf Game?

Here are 4 amazing qualities of CBD — qualities that also have the potential to improve your golf game.

• Benefit #1: CBD Fights Inflammation
• Benefit #2: CBD Supports Joint Health
• Benefit #3: CBD Improves the Mind-Muscle Connection 
• Benefit #4: CBD May Help You Get a Better Sleep

1. CBD Fights Inflammation

CBD is powerfully anti-inflammatory. Unlike conventional anti-inflammatory medications, however, it’s also holistic.

That’s good because a little bit of inflammation is actually beneficial (it helps signal to other parts of the body that it needs to repair). But too much — or too little — inflammation is not.

Left unchecked, chronically high inflammation may lead to pain, nerve damage, even deteriorating joint health. A person who (for whatever reason) doesn’t have enough inflammation in their body may fail to adapt to exercise and other stressors.

To really get things right, the competitive athlete needs to help their body walk this fine line, and golfers are no different. Just like other athletes, they routinely push past physical limitations…and that leaves their inflammation states in need of a little help. 

Take it from the man many consider to be the best golfer ever, Jack Nicklaus: “We just beat up our bodies…It’s why I gave up golf.”

Tiger Woods, the best golfer of modern times, has had a similar experience. In 2008 he recovered from knee surgery to barely win the US open, golfing through 19 extra holes of play-off ‘overtime’.

As the New York Times sarcastically reported, “all Woods had to do to win was shake off two months of inactivity — he had not walked 18 holes since having knee surgery in April — overcome lingering pain in his knee, [and] battle back from four double bogeys.”

If only Tiger had CBD back then.

Why? Because CBD seems to speed the recovery of injured bones and joints by ‘quieting down’ inflammation. Once the inflammation subsides the compound even seems to help newer, healthier cells form so they can play a role in healing.

Let’s address inflammation first. We said CBD’s impacts on inflammation were holistic, but what does that mean?

It means CBD reduces chronic inflammation in the areas where it’s most needed.

CBD does this via its activation of the endocannabinoid system (ECS).

The ECS is highly selective; its receptors shift to populate different areas of the body depending on where they detect need. An increase in stomach pain can cause these receptors to accumulate within the gut lining; in an injured athlete, they’ll be packed into inflamed areas [1].

And with increased receptor density comes enhanced binding affinity. In other words — the more attention the endocannabinoid system gives an area, the more attention CBD is able to give it, too!

Harnessing CBD’s anti-inflammatory properties is as simple as taking a few milligrams of the compound each day. Golfers can also add in the use of a quality CBD topical, or even a transdermal patch, to give problem areas specific relief.

2. CBD Supports Joint Health

One of the best ‘side effects’ of reduced inflammation is improved joint health. For obvious reasons, a joint that’s not chronically inflamed will be able to keep itself strong and healthy.

Unfortunately, joint problems are something golfers seem to experience a lot of. According to Golf Digest: “A lot of golfers are playing hurt. Not broken-bones hurt, but with things like tendonitis, sore muscles and arthritis. These aren’t flashy injuries, but they still can keep you off the course.”

CBD helps, both by reducing inflammation and other mechanisms. A 2015 study determined that it increased osteoblast activity; osteoblasts are new bone cells that factor into one’s recovery from breaks and fractures [2].

Healthy bones and joints contain plenty of healthy collagen, too. CBD may even help the intricate collagen networks within post-injury bones link together — better and stronger than they were before.

As cannabis expert Allen Frankel says, “here is one more great use of CBD for prevention of bone loss and help in restoring stronger bone after a fracture.”

Of course, you’re free to use CBD before an injury happens — not just after it!

Bones have to renew and regenerate themselves daily to stay healthy in the first place, and CBD can be used for this, too. It’s hugely useful as a preventative measure; for golfers, that means it could help them avoid “golfer’s elbow” and other wear-and-tear conditions.

Another benefit, this one more indirect: CBD’s ability to improve fat-burning means it could help you keep moving. Motion, particularly the type of motion from low-impact exercises like golf, could help maintain strength and health in your joints. 

The best CBD oils for joint pain are made from a full-spectrum extract and feature a potency of at least 500 mg per bottle.

3. CBD Improves the Mind-Muscle Connection  

Golfers may have the most advanced mind-muscle connection of any type of athlete. Just think about it: their sport involves nearly endless practice and near-constant refinement to technique.

In the scientific world, this connection is called neuromuscular coordination. As you might expect from the term’s prefix, it involves huge amounts of neurons…and is especially taxing on the nervous system.

Did you know that the nervous system is exactly where CBD does much of its best work? The endocannabinoid receptors it binds to are found in the greatest concentration within the brain and spinal cord, and the neurotransmitters it influences work mostly within the central nervous system.

Studies are already showing that cannabinoids may be able to treat movement disorders — could they be used to address movement optimization, too? [3]

After all, endocannabinoid type-2 receptors activated by CBD have been shown to influence motor neurons within the brain’s basal ganglia [4]. The theoretical evidence here only gets more complex…so we’ll just say it appears likely.

CBD may help with the more general mind-body connection, too. Harvard researchers have called the endocannabinoid system it helps regulate “a literal bridge between body and mind”.

This type of awareness relates closely to something called proprioception, and it’s very important for golfers.

Studies suggest that golfing may improve proprioceptive health, or the ability to sense one’s physical position within space [5]…on the flip side, proprioceptive health is critical to improving something as complex as the golf swing.

Here’s some advice from the experts at Golfer’s Digest, again:

“Proprioception is inherent, however it can be improved upon—especially when trying to perform a sophisticated activity like swinging a golf club…[which] requires good proprioception because it’s impossible to watch the movements of every body part involved and watch the ball.”

Are you seeing CBD’s potential here?

CBD > A healthier endocannabinoid system > better proprioception > a better golf swing

And with a better golf swing comes less wear on the joints and a reduced risk of injury. Experience fewer injuries, and you’ll have more time to practice.

Talk about a positive feedback loop!

4. CBD May Help You Get a Better Sleep

CBD-induced reductions in inflammation we mentioned earlier lead to other benefits. The biggest one that’s not entirely obvious? Better sleep.

PGA-level golfers are fascinated with this, according to a recent ESPN article. Number-one ranked pro Scott McCarron’s been taking the plant compound since 2018 when a sample CBD product was given to him tangibly improved his sleep.

Maybe ‘improved’ is an understatement. McCarron’s sleep quality was transformed — as verified by a WHOOP sleep device, Scott had his first consecutive week of “fantastic” sleep in two years.

Fellow pro Bubba Watson experienced the same thing. For him, the sleep-supportive benefits of CBD made its use a “no-brainer”.

Suggested Reading: Comprehensive List of CBD Research.