ICYMI: 80 Percent Of Weed Smokers Use It To Work Out: Study

BOULDER, CO — The stereotype is well-known: a pot smoker on a couch, likely with a bag of chips, playing video games and watching TV. A recent study by the University of Colorado Boulder, however, suggests just the opposite.

About 80 percent of pot smokers say they use the drug before or after exercise, the study said. Furthermore, most of the 600 respondents from California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington said it motivates them, makes it more enjoyable and improves recovery.

The university published the cannabis study to Frontiers in Public Health on Tuesday.

Senior author Angela Bryan, a professor in the university's Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and the Institute for Cognitive Science, said there's no clear-cut thumbs up in terms of smoking pot and exercising.

See the CU Boulder Today article here.

There's no known evidence backing the respondents' answers, Bryan said. "But I am also not convinced it is harmful."

The authors didn't skip the fact that their data may be skewed by bias. "Without a non-using comparison group, we are unable to rule out potential selection bias; that is, it might be that non-users living in such highly active states are even more active than cannabis users," they wrote.

The authors of the study said that while there's no proven physical benefit of smoking pot before or after workouts, the fact that people say it improves motivation, enjoyment and recovery could be a positive.

"Among those who co-used, 70 percent said it increased enjoyment of exercise, 78 percent said it boosted recovery, and 52 percent said it heightened motivation," the CU Boulder Today report said.

“Given that these are all recognized barriers to exercise, it is possible that cannabis might actually serve as a benefit to exercise engagement,” the authors said in the study.