Three cheers for California’s Proposition 19 (Legalization of Marijuana)! Many people took my video here as anti-pot, it wasnt! I went out of my way saying I was for the legalization of marijuana. Stress causes high blood pressure and I think one could make a very good case that lowering stress levels with an occasional joint could be a much healthier way of managing high blood pressure than the hundreds of millions of high blood pressure pills that Americans pop every year.
Having said that, pot and bodybuilding dont mix if you are a serious bodybuilder or serious athlete! If you need your fitness level to be at 100% of maximum then smoking pot is a bad idea. If you are a casual bodybuilder or just interested in being fit, then smoke away (as long as you do it legally). However, if you are a serious bodybuilder you need to avoid pot for the following reasons:
- Munchies – controlling nutrition precisely is required for those serious about fitness, the quality of every calorie counts. Anything that is an appetite enhancer and might cause deviation from your nutritional plan is a bad idea. I realize the there are forms of pot which do not enhance the appetite.
- Mellowing effect – Being successful at bodybuilding and many other sports requires an aggressive edge, the mellowing effect of marijuana dulls this necessary drive.
- Blood Oxygen level decrease – smoking anything will decrease your blood oxygen levels and is extremely detrimental to athletic performance. I realize that the smoke a pot smoker inhales is very small in comparison to a cigarette smoker but its smoke none the less and it will slightly decrease O2 levels. Performance athletes can’t afford to lose any performance, no matter how little.