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As a seasoned pro who's led teams at the international and professional level, Abby ERCEG demands a lot FROM her body, both mentally and physically. This 2X champ relies on her consistent recovery game plan to keep her at the top of her game.
2 Champions.
2 Game plans.
1 goal.
Both Abby Erceg and Kristen Hamilton of the North Carolina Courage look to stay on top of their game with a whole-body training and recovery approach. They rely on different Mendi products to promote better sleep, reduce pain and inflammation and encourage balanced energy & focus throughout their daily routine.
RACHAEL RAPINOE
ABBY ERCEG
RACHAEL
What would you like to tell other athletes in your sport or outside of your sport about using CBD/cannabis as a recovery tool?
ABBY
RACHAEL
You’ve been one of the most fit (or maybe the fittest) player in the League for years. Aside from hard work, what are some of the other keys to your fitness level and how successfully you’ve been able to combat fatigue throughout the season?
ABBY
RACHAEL
ABBY
RACHAEL
What are some things better recovery allows you to do besides just perform at the highest level?
ABBY
This is going to sound a little bit corny, but recovering better just allows you to be a better person. You're a better teammate. You're a better person the next day because someone that can't recover is kind of miserable. I kind of I've describe it as this hungover feeling. You're sluggish, you're slow, you're irritable, your mood changes. You don't you don't want to do team activities. You kind of want to be alone. So recovery in that sense is just so important in terms of how you operate on a day to day basis.
What measurable ways (i.e. Whoop, HRV, FF90, etc.) have you found CBD/cannabis to help you?
I found that on the nights that I take CBD, I'm falling into REM sleep a little bit more, which is money for me because I'm getting more recovery than the nights I don't take it. I take it especially on game days. For me that's important.
I think it's a critical tool to be able to use, especially after games. But I think looking into the future, we need to get more data around how specifically CBD is affecting heart rate, sleep, or even lactic levels in your system. I think for athletes, that's really critical knowledge.
Do you have any unsung heroes? Who are they, and why?
So this question's really interesting for me. The way I was raised, the people I looked up to weren't involved in sports. It was always people that I knew, like my parents, my mother especially, and it was always people that just had really good morals, really good principles, rather than had really good athletic ability. Because I think to a degree, athletic ability, you can train as much as you want and people that don't have it can go out and get it to a certain degree.
But those people that show compassion, those in the wake of any success and are still humble and pay tribute to grassroots, that is something I really admire not only as a person, but also as an athlete.
An athlete example, you look at someone like Roger Federer, who's not only adored by the players he plays against, but also by the fans because he's so humble, he gives back as much as he takes and he pays homage to the history of the sport, which I don't think a lot of athletes do these days.
And then off the field, I would definitely be my parents. Just for the way they raised me and what they had to go through. You know, as a single parent, my mother really had some struggles. And you don't really appreciate that until you grow up and you understand how hard it must have been for them.
What’s one thing not shown in your stats and awards that you want to be associated with your legacy?
I think aside from the awards and any kind of statistics that are posted about me, just being a good person is probably one of the biggest associations I want, especially being in a leadership role for most of my career. Obviously being the captain of the courage for the past five years. I was a captain of my national team for five years. So I think when I walk away, if people can say she was a really good person, she was strong as a leader, she was trustworthy, she was dedicated to the cause. I think that probably carries more weight than it does the amount of trophies I walk away with.
As we delve deeper into “non-conventional” forms of health and wellness and taking mental more seriously as a major component to high performance, I see a vast untapped market for companies like Mendi to continue to enhance sport performance, and, most importantly, overall well being. I believe ignorance of some kind hinders this progress. Whether investors look over black-owned/female-owned businesses, or naysayers actively avoid resources that educate on efficacy, ignorance in a world of possibility is such a disappointment. However, though, I see many of these instances less and less as fearless innovators, like Mendi, don’t take “No” as an answer.
