Tag: pro athlete

Exploring Professional Snowmobiling with Skilled “Sledder”, Ross Robinson

Post author By Flow Marketing
Post date April 30, 2021

By the Ablis CBD Team

Ross Robinson grew up snowmobiling. He doesn’t remember his first time on a snowmobile, but getting out on the snow at a young age sparked a passion in Ross that continues to this day.

“I used to ride double in front of my dad when I was really young,” he said, “but I didn’t really get hooked on it until I was a teenager and was big enough to ride my own snowmobile.”

When Ross entered his teens, it was “game on”, he says. Now he’s in his mid-20’s and is an established professional snowmobiler and content creator. He often works with companies like Lynx Snowmobiles to create content for his followers (on YouTube, he has 19k followers; on Instagram, his follower count is almost 57k).

“I’ve really enjoyed creating fun and engaging content for my followers,” Ross said. “That’s where my focus will be for the foreseeable future, both in and out of the snowmobile world.”

Ross highlights fellow snowmobilers in “509 Sled Update”, a YouTube show that showcases insane clips of professionals snowmobiling (also known as sledding). Most of Ross’s content revolves around snowmobiling, but he hopes to branch out into other similar sports.

As an “opportunity hunter”, you never know where he might go once something seizes his interest, he says—just as he’s done with his snowmobiling career.

After learning the ropes from his father and traversing the slopes on his own as a teen, Ross took his snowmobiling to the next level and spent six seasons working at Burandt’s Backcountry Adventure. This, he says, was “really the springboard for a lot of opportunities in my career.”

He began working at “BBA” as a support guide, then spent time running his own groups as a lead guide. During his last few seasons working at Burandt’s, Ross managed the brand’s media alongside his guide duties. Unfortunately, the time commitment of being a lead guide kept him from his other passion: hitting the slopes on a snowmobile wherever, whenever.

Ross posted a video on his YouTube channel sharing the ins and outs of his choice to leave BBA for new opportunities, but ultimately, he chose to combine his media experience with his love for snowmobiling to embark on a new career path: working for himself, creating really cool content.

“My biggest accomplishment [to date] is being at a point where I can put together cool projects and make them happen, usually while getting paid in the process,” Ross said. “That’s what I hope to continue to do for years to come.”

During his snowmobiling career thus far, Ross has explored multiple places across North America, along with excursions overseas to Sweden and Chile. Chile was especially unique, he says, because of the culture and the time of year—While it was 100 degrees at home, he was riding in fresh snow, discovering new zones.

Now, Ross stays busy creating content, sharing highlights from the snowmobiling world, and dropping bits of knowledge about all things “sledding”. He even has a podcast in the works. Each morning, he says, he kicks off the day with something that puts him in the right mindset: Ablis CBD & MCT in his coffee.

“The variety of products Ablis has is a big win for me,” Ross said. “Whenever I need a refresh, I’ll enjoy an infused sparkling water, and then I’ll use some muscle rub after a session at the gym or a day in the mountains.”

When he’s not out on the snow, Ross takes time to watch actions sports (usually to gain future project inspiration and to plan future adventures), catching up with friends, and occasionally, grabbing the Xbox controller to remind everyone that he still can “dominate on the sticks” like back in his teenage days.

Of course, Ross is still dominating it on the slopes like he did when he was a teen, too. Out there in the mountains, it’s just “myself, my sled, and endless terrain”, he said. That’s really part of the appeal.

“[Snowmobilers] have the freedom to go wherever our skills can take us, traversing massive ridgelines, climbing up steep and dark creek bottoms,” Ross said. “The exploration is endless, and it’s exploration at 30 miles per hour while flying and jumping off everything imaginable.”

See Ross Robinson in action on his Instagram or YouTube.

Tags Outdoors, pro athlete, things to do in bend

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Meet Mckenna Brown: Professional Street Skier and Holistic Health Advocate

Post author By Flow Marketing
Post date March 19, 2021

By Ablis CBD

Mckenna Brown started snowboarding—yes, snowboarding, not skiing—when she was six. She didn’t put on a pair of skis until almost five years later, when she and her best friend decided to trade hobbies, just for fun.

“When I was eleven, my best friend and I swapped one day,” said Mckenna. “Ever since then, I knew that skiing is what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Her best friend’s dad rounded up an old pair of skis and boots from the back of their garage and taught Mckenna how to ski. Nine years later, the Bend, OR, native is twenty years old. She’s placed in several skiing competitions, and is now making waves (or should we say, tracks), in women’s street skiing.

During her early teenage years, Mckenna was focused on training for competitions. She’d train at least four days a week. Ultimately, she was working toward the Olympics. Her training and dedication paid off, too—When she was 15, she placed second in both the rail jam and slopestyle competition at Nationals.

Although she was undoubtedly skilled, after spending several years in the competition circuit, Mckenna found herself becoming undoubtedly spent. She came to the realization that it wasn’t really her goal to become an Olympic skier. She loved skiing—her “creative outlet”—but she didn’t like the intense pressure that came with the competitions. She wanted to do something…different.

At age 16, Mckenna moved to Salt Lake City to live with a host family while attending her senior year of high school and training with the Park City Ski Team. In her spare time, she started skiing in the streets.

“I started dibble dabbling in the streets, which is pretty wild, and I’d film it,” said Mckenna. “I realized that this was another realm within the ski industry. You film projects and sponsors love it, people love it. I love it. It’s much more creative and free flowing [than competitive skiing].”

As Mckenna skied on home-made ramps and rails around town, she discovered that this type of skiing was much more her pace. She began spending more time street skiing, and now, several years later, focuses on skiing or filming projects.

“There are only ten or so girls who are currently active in the street skiing industry,” said Mckenna. “I’m riding a very new train, and me and the other girls are trying to inspire more girls to get into it because it’s really fun.”

When she was competitive skiing, Mckenna says, she didn’t work with many sponsors. In the street skiing space, however, she’s worked with several sponsor companies to film her street skiing talent.

In 2020, she worked on an all-female film project in Quebec that highlighted the up-and-coming sport of women’s backcountry skiing, free skiing, and street skiing. The other female skiers featured in the project were all older than Mckenna by several years (the second youngest person was 26).

“It was a sponsored project with other girls who were all really experienced, which was awesome,” Mckenna said. “It’s great that we were all a part of [the project], and I felt so deeply connected with Canada. The energy was incredibly magical. It’s one of my favorite ski memories.”

This is the first of many exciting skiing memories for Mckenna. Last year, she entered Level 1’s SUPERUNKNOWN contest (a video contest for unpaid skiers). The video that she sent in earned her a spot to participate in the next part of the contest: meeting up with 2020 winners at a resort, and filming content with Level 1 at the resort’s custom-build private park. Although the meet-up is currently on hold due to COVID-19, whoever stood out during the time at the resort would usually win a filming contract with Level 1 for a whole year.

In 2020, Mckenna was also invited to a rail jam competition at Dew Tour. She didn’t place, but “getting invited was a big deal, to me at least, because people who are usually invited to [Dew Tour] are in the competition circuit and well known in the competition circuit,” she says.

Even though she’s no longer competing regularly, Mckenna is looking forward to going back to Dew Tour again in the future. And, even if Dew Tour is the only “comp” she attends all year, there’s no doubt that Mckenna Brown is going to become a name to know in the female street skiing industry.

“I’d really like to create movies that impact [women’s] skiing,” Mckenna said. “Women’s skiing is taken so seriously on the comp side of things. I want the younger generation of ski girls to know that there’s more out there than ‘become a professional competition skier or become nothing’.”

Along with filming and skiing, Mckenna has also been studying holistic health and healing. She says that she’s dedicating some of her time to learning about these things so that she can one day create a business outside of skiing that’s focused on healthy living.

“I’m very into energy healing and connecting the physical with the emotional,” said Mckenna. “Lately, I’ve been learning a lot about how focusing on an injury or stressing out about a pain in the body can send a stress response to that area and make it more inflamed.”

This may be part of the reason why Mckenna is a fan of Ablis CBD tinctures, creams, and beverages: she says that she uses these things to calm her down when she’s anxious or stressed, and uses creams especially to ease menstrual pains or muscle inflammation after a day of street skiing.

Yoga is another way that Mckenna takes care of her body and her mind. Ultimately, she says, a healthy life starts with thinking positively, having positive self-talk, and being aware of your self image. It’s all about being in tune with your body. In her opinion, it’s incredibly important to be in alignment with your happiest self.

“Whenever I’m in a negative mindset or have negative influences, it really blocks me from who I’m supposed to be,” said Mckenna. “I didn’t feel like I was worthy until I figured out what made me happy with skiing. Now that I know I want to put my energy into street skiing, I can really work towards a future with more of my passions.”

Tags bend or, Mount Bachelor Ski, pro athlete, skiing

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How To Relieve Sore Muscles: Advice from a Pro Athlete

Post author By Flow Marketing
Post date October 14, 2020

by Renee Metivier

Muscle soreness can put a massive damper on your training as an athlete, and poor recovery can ultimately lead to injury.

The older I get the more I realize how crucial recovery is to not only healthy training but longevity.

I’ve been running for a long time.

I started running in high school and at the University of Colorado where I won the NCAA title in 2005 and then went pro. Since then I’ve won:

2010 USA Track & Field (USATF) Indoor 3000m National Champion
2012 USATF 20k Road National Champion
2016 USATF 1/2 Marathon Trail National Champion
2017 USATF Marathon Trail National Champion
2020 3-Time Treadmill World Record Holder

I have had multiple injuries that resulted in major surgeries and intensive recovery.

An injury to my Achilles in 2011 led me to the Olympic Training Center In Colorado Springs, where I had access to the best doctors, physiologists, physical therapists, and trainers. The works!

I realized many people, including elite athletes to the average person, don’t have access to these resources, so I wanted to create a facility that offered the best therapists and coaches along with the latest research that was affordable to the public.

With my journey, it became really important to me to help rebuild people stronger and more resilient.

So, I founded Recharge Sport here in Bend where I’m the owner, head coach, and personal trainer with a focus on biomechanics and correctional exercise.

As a coach as well as an athlete, preventing and relieving muscle soreness is on my mind a lot.

The Myth About Muscle Soreness

When your muscles get that tightness the day after an intense workout, it’s actually not lactic acid that’s the culprit. That’s a big misnomer.

It’s delayed onset muscle soreness – a result of microscopic muscle tears.

Typically, you will clear all the lactic acid out of your muscles fairly quickly, but the delayed muscle soreness (DOMS) is what happens when your muscles are overstressed. DOMS is completely normal and should only last 24-48 hours as your body recovers – this is the adaptation phase where recovery should be prioritized.

Don’t ice after a really hard workout unless you have noticeable inflammation and pain, because icing will prevent the necessary blood flow for full adaptation and muscle repair.

Research recommends going from hot to cold to hot multiple times so that you get that pump-through vasoconstriction in the cold and vasodilation in the hot to help push inflammation out but also keep new healing blood flowing through the tissues.

I like to finish in the hot last to keep that blood flow moving. I drink some Ablis CBD sparkling water as well to hydrate and increase vasodilation.

It’s All Maintenance

It’s most important to get that vascularity, get your blood vessels moving, and flush out those toxins.

With blood flow, you’re not only flushing out toxins, the new blood being pushed in is bringing growth factors and platelet-rich plasma to your tissues as well.

That’s what speeds up the healing.

A lot of people focus on that lactic acid, but your heart works really hard when you work out to pump blood to your tissues.

When you’re tired after a workout, your heart is slower in pumping it out. So, anything to increase that vascularity and get that blood pumping is good!

Your muscle tissues actually get micro-damaged after a hard workout. Your body has to repair in the adaptation phase, and that’s when your body overcompensates and how you get stronger.

That’s why you need to incorporate progressive, systematic stress to your body that’s not too much that you can’t recover from. Stress can be good when you have an adequate recovery to adapt!

You need those recovery periods, but anyway you can speed up the process and increase that blood flow, the shorter those periods become which leads to better adaptation and fewer injury risks

Make Recovery Part of Your Nightly Routine

The best is to avoid injury from the beginning and take care of your body as early as you can.

Recovery and healing in that adaptation period are just as important as working hard in training, if not more so.

Longer sessions in the infrared sauna or hot/cold tubs are fantastic, but even 5 mins each evening can be a game-changer. I keep everything I need for my muscle relief routine next to my bed and set an alarm for myself every night as a reminder.

I massage the tinctures straight onto my ankle then stretch before I go to bed using my stretch rope.

I’ve got it down where it doesn’t have to take forever. I do some longer, full-body sessions in the week, but I’m always doing at least five to 15 minutes of something specific every day. For me, it is my “diva” ankle and also my hips that are my constant focus.

My routine helps me sleep better too. I’m deep breathing, drinking my CBD, massaging with the muscle rub, foam rolling, and stretching for 15 minutes and I usually sleep more soundly after. And better sleep is one of the most important things you can do for increased overall health and wellness.

Consciously make it a part of your nightly routine until it becomes a habit and easy to stick with!

Recovery Time is Key

One of my favorite quotes from Deena Kastor, the American marathon record holder, is “It’s not about over-training, it’s about under-recovery.”

Under recovering is what creates over-training and what leads to injury and burnout.

Everyone is different when it comes to their recovery time.

The quicker you recover, the better you can adapt and also minimize injury risk, but it still depends on the individual and how well you’ve been training.

As I get older, I need two to three days between really hard efforts.

If you’re having trouble sleeping, if your heart rate isn’t coming down between intervals or it’s staying too high, that’s a good indication of needing more recovery time.

Sleep is still number one and it’s a factor in your training.

Your legs are a good indicator as well. Are they feeling like lead or are they pretty bouncy? That seems pretty simple, but it’s a very tangible way to listen to your body’s needs.

Also, pay attention to stiffness in the mornings.

I train six days a week, but I only go hard running-wise on two of those days and I have one day that I run at about medium.

I lift heavy weights twice a week and balance lifting with my hard running days.

But if I need an extra day because I don’t feel recovered, I’ll take it. And I am always making sure to do functional mobility, prehab, and self-care regularly.

I think that’s the biggest problem. People don’t put enough emphasis on recovery in their training.

You’re only as good as how much you can recover from, especially in the long-term.

You may be able to get away with it in the short term, but it could lead to injury or poor performance down the road.

Injury is Preventable

None of us are rational with ourselves. Not even me. I need a coach too!

We don’t typically and regularly check-in and say, “Oh, my hamstrings are extra tight on the warmup. What’s going on there?”

“Are there any spots that I’ve started to neglect that are basically screaming at me but I’m ignoring?”

Knowing when to push and when not to push is a skill, it’s hard to do.

Having someone on the outside that is knowledgeable can see those better.

Listen to your body.

Your body gives you signs, and it’s very important to have optimal recovery so that you can reap the benefits from your hard work.

My college coach was really, really big on that. I thank him every day for really teaching us to listen to sensory data.

When I run, I’m not big on checking my heart rate because I can feel it. But that can be a good tool to use when you are learning to listen to your body.

I check in with my breathing, check in with my heart, see how my ankles land on the ground, feel for any tension in my jaw, and relax my shoulders.

I call it my dashboard.

I think everyone should create their own mental dashboard.

Checking in helps you to stay in the moment, stay present, and listen to what’s going on with your body. The mental side is not talked about enough and it is a big proponent.

The number one performance enhancement is getting enough sleep. I don’t think I can say that enough!

A lot of people think it’s a badge of honor to be able to function on low sleep, but it really shouldn’t be. You’re actually lowering your health by depriving your body of rest.

It can make all the difference in your workouts, but also your overall cognitive function.

Stretching is Critical

I like to use Ablis’ tinctures and muscle rub while I’m doing mobility and stretching.

I stretch my muscles, but more importantly, I focus on the full range of motion of my joints including my ankles. I need increased dorsiflexion and to make sure my talus is shifting smoothly inside the ankle joint. I spend about five minutes on my ankles specifically every day since that is my “Achilles heel.”

I’m always going to have to spend extra time on the areas I’ve injured, so I make it my first priority.

Then, I’ll go into my full body stretches.

The performance of my ankles and Achilles, which can get stiff, feels — and performs — ten times better after stretching and my injury risk goes down.

I also get a full-body massage once or twice a week with MCT oil.

Don’t Underestimate Proper Hydration

Hydration is an important factor in recovery because it aids in getting that new blood with the platelet-rich plasma and growth factors through the body.

I’m really bad about it, so I love Ablis’s sparkling water because I get CBD while I’m hydrating, and it tastes great! I drink it multiple times a week and sometimes multiple times a day – especially after hard training days or while recovering and relaxing in the infrared sauna.

I use all of Ablis’s products in conjunction, to be honest. It depends on what’s going on and what my needs are at the time. From helping me hydrate and flush my system post-workout to actually turning off and get fully relaxed, Ablis has become a big part of my post-workout routine.

Keep Reading: The Best Mountain Biking Trails Near Bend, Oregon

*The statements above have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Our products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Tags CBD, muscle recovery, pro athlete, Renee Metivier, workout advice