How CBD Helps Athletes with Rachael Rapinoe

Growing up, athlete Rachael Rapinoe thrived off the "built-in rivalry" at home with her twin sister Megan. The Rapinoe twins played collegiate-level soccer for the Portland Pilots, where Rachael sustained a career-changing knee injury. After years of surgeries and overuse of prescription painkillers, Rachael learned just how many elite athletes were tapping into the vast health benefits of CBD, and she tried it for herself.
With a Master's degree in Health and Exercise Science behind her and the lived experience of how cannabinoids can help athletes like herself, Rachael co-founded Mendi, a sports-focused CBD brand whose mission is to "improve athletes lives using nature’s best recovery tools." Mendi offers CBD-infused gummies, capsules, tinctures, salves, and oils, all designed to help keep athletes like the Rapinoe twins at the top of their game. In this episode, Brit and Rachael discuss her experience with opioids and pot, how cannabinoids help athletes recover, whether weed should be considered a performance-enhancing drug, the current state of CBD, and THC rules in major sports, and more.
Learn more about Mendi at themendico.com.
Find issues of Different Leaf the Magazine at DifferenLeaf.com or at Barnes and Noble and Books-a-Million bookstores, follow us on social media @differentleaf and @different_leaf, and follow host Brit Smith @BritTheBritish. Produced by Andrea Muraskin and Brit Smith, music by Homebody.