I'm A HIIT Athlete — Here's How Recovery Rituals In My World Are Changing

I'm a personal trainer, athlete, and a generally very active person. On any given day, you can find me sweating through a killer HIIT workout, working through challenging boxing drills, training new handstand skills, stand-up paddle-boarding with friends, or trying to wear out my high-energy dog, Rocket, on a hike.

But as much as I love to move, I'm also highly aware of just how important proper recovery is in order to continue to make progress and, even more importantly, to avoid injuries and fatigue from overtraining.

Because of that, I'm always looking out for the best recovery strategies so I can keep training hard day after day and doing what I love. But I take my recovery very seriously and don't do something just because it's trendy—I make sure there's real, science-backed evidence and tried-and-true tested results before making it a consistent part of my routine.

To optimize recovery, I try to get eight to nine hours of sleep every night, with very few exceptions. There's so much research coming out about the importance of sleep and why anything under seven hours a night just isn't enough. The more sleep you get, the more likely your body will have a chance to recover and function at optimal mental and physical levels the next day.

More and more people are turning to CBD oil for supporting their post-workout recovery and sounder sleep cycles, including—and especially—athletes. A quick online search for "CBD for athletes" will give you an idea of how athletes are tapping into it for pain relief in their training.

I first heard about CBD from my naturopathic doctor, who mentioned he'd been seeing some promising results from CBD in reducing exercise-induced inflammation. After that, I started to hear about athletes using it for supporting recovery and became intrigued to try it myself.

I've now been adding Charlotte's Web Original Formula CBD Oil to my regular recovery routine for about a month now, and I've noticed a positive difference in my general recovery levels from exercise. There are a lot of CBD brands out there these days, but I personally trust Charlotte's Web because I've found their U.S.-grown hemp to be consistently high-quality and also find the unique blend of phytocannabinoids, terpenes, flavonoids in each serving helpful in supporting recovery.