Proposed gym, Power Plant Fitness, will look to integrate medical marijuana with exercise to enhance workouts and shorten recovery time.
Jim McAlpine, founder of the 420 Games, which features a triathlon, golf tournament, obstacle course, and the signature 4.20 mile run, faced a mountain of criticism when he began his athletic venture in San Francisco for the first time.
“Most people would just laugh at me as I explained my idea,” said McAlpine. “The stigma runs deep and people immediately go to the propaganda ingrained in their brain that says marijuana and athletics don’t mix. Well, that’s exactly why I started The 420 Games, because I knew all of those people were wrong”.
However, the 420 Games proved to be a huge success, with events being planned in LA, Seattle, and Denver this year.
McAlpine is staying with the athletic cannabis user theme in his newest business, a 420-friendly gym in San Francisco. Named Power Plant Fitness, it is claiming to be the first cannabis friendly gym in the world.
At Power Plant Fitness, cannabis will be used as “a tool for focus and recovery”, said McAlpine.
In-house vaping and edibles will be available at the facility upon its opening in the fall. It is unclear whether patrons will be able to smoke inside the gym due to California’s non-smoking laws, but an outdoor smoking deck has been proposed as a future addition. Power Plant already produces a line of smokeless cannabis-based products for pre and post-workout, like edibles and topicals, that they will sell at the gym to enhance their clientele’s experience.
“It won’t be a place to get high and just screw around,” said McAlpine.”We are focused on the athletic side, not the cannabis side.”
Power Plant Fitness may be onto something. The World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) has banned cannabis during competition as a performance enhancing drug (PED) because it improves an athlete’s performance by acting to reduce anxiety and open lungs as a bronchodilator.
McAlpine’s partner in the gym will be retired NFL running back Ricky Williams. The 1998 Heisman Trophy winner’s NFL career was hampered by four separate infractions of the league’s drug policy before he finally retired for good. At Power Plant Fitness, Williams will be involved with the day to day activities as manager.
“I was a really good football player, a really good person, my teammates loved me, my coaches loved me, but my career and life were ruined because of a drug test,” Williams told the the International Business Times.
Williams isn’t the only pro-cannabis player the league has seen in recent years.
Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman Eugene Monroe has come out for players’ rights to use marijuana in a medical context, citing a rise in painkiller use in the league and the dangers to players created by concussions. Just last month, Monroe donated $80,000 to research the effects of marijuana on pain and concussion in NFL players.
In 2014, Medical Marijuana, Inc. partnered with ex-Jets star Marvin Washington to raise awareness for concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) through our “Show Your Green” campaign. Medical Marijuana, Inc. subsidiary, Kannalife™ Sciences holds the exclusive license from the National Institutes of Health under U.S. patent 6,630,507, “Cannabinoids as Antioxidants and Neuroprotectants” to develop a cannabinoid-based treatment for CTE.
The main fear surrounding Power Plant Fitness is that the effects of high-THC products might make for an unsafe environment. However, during a “cannabis performance assessment”, members will be evaluated by gym staff for ideal ways to consume marijuana safely before a workout. Some customers may be advised not to consume cannabis at all, while others will use high-CBD products derived from hemp or topical applications, like lotions or salves.
Because THC can cause dizziness, drowsiness, and a loss of motor coordination, many athletes turn to products high in cannabidiol (CBD) and low in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). It has been suggested that CBD has anti-inflammatory and anti-pain properties. This, combined with the fact that CBD is non-psychoactive, makes CBD a smart option as a cannabis-based supplement to workouts.
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