The CBD brand this Formula One coach recommends to his athletes

As a performance coach Michael Italiano is always looking for ways to give his athletes that competitive edge – here he reveals why he’ll be recommending they try CBD.

Formula One performance coach Michael Italiano trains professional athletes such as Australian McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo.

Now he has revealed that he has been using CBD products, reporting that they improved his mood, helped him sleep better and aid muscle recovery in his back and knees. 

“I’m always looking for ways to improve my client’s competitive performance and to try and find a competitive advantage,” he said.

“But I’m not only trying to improve their performance, I’m also trying to improve mine. A big part of the role is making sure that you’re looking after yourself as a coach and being a good role model.

“I’m always actively looking for different products that we can bring into our internal space and use to help my professional athletes perform at their best.”

The luxury wellness brand hailed by Italiano, is the UK-based Serena Organics, which claims to offer consumers exclusive concentrations of CBD.

Using advanced techniques, its CBD is extracted from organically grown hemp and combined with medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oil, to produce a broad-spectrum CBD tincture with a 40 percent concentration level, said to improve mindfulness, boost metabolism and aid in muscle recovery.

The tinctures come in three different concentration levels

The brand’s broad spectrum CBD tinctures are available in three different concentration levels, alongside a topical cooling gel and body butter. 

Despite admitting to be “sceptical” of CBD, Michael said he has been taking seven drops every day for a month and was so impressed by the improvements in his mood and sleep, he would be recommending the products to his athletes. 

“I’ve noticed improvements in my mood and I track my sleep every day and noticed that it’s actually improved my REM sleep quite a lot,” he said.

“I’m pretty impressed with this product. It’s something that I’ll stick to and hopefully get my athletes into as well.”

Michael has also been using the cooling gel, finding that it helped ease stiffness in his upper back and knees after long periods travelling with the F1 team. 

“I tend to get quite a stiff upper back from flying and sitting upright for long periods of time, and a little bit on my knees after I’ve done some heavy volume training and I noticed the cooling gel works really well,” he added.

Serena Organics’ cooling gel is said to help ease stiffness and tension

“I was very sceptical about how CBD could help me and my athletes, and I’ve been proudly proven wrong. I highly recommend this product to novice athletes or anyone working in a competitive field.”

Serena Organics’ commitment to providing trusted products has gained the brand a high-profile following amongst wellness experts. 

Operating as consultants within the CBD industry, its founders, Joe Alabi and David Hexter, often travelled to the United States and Canada where the industry has flourished, before using their insight to launch the brand.

Joe commented: “Industry-wide lab testing consistently found that many products previously being sold contained little to no CBD, fostering mistrust in a UK market that already carries a stigma associated with recreational cannabis.

“With Serena Organics, we believe we have a duty, both to UK consumers and to the wider CBD industry, to raise standards, increase transparency and educate customers around the globe about the benefits of living a fulfilling, happy, productive life with world-class CBD products you can trust.”

“We are proud of our gold standard levels of quality testing and we’ve welcomed FSA Novel Food Accreditation and committed to extensive, multi-level testing to ensure stated CBD micrograms and percentages are accurate, whilst also guaranteeing 0.0% levels of THC across our diverse product range.”