"Regeneration is key to successful athletes"

Doug Boulanger's journey with Aprèsport sounds like it's straight out of a storybook. As a young ice hockey player, the Franco-Canadian Boulanger ended up in Vermont with a Lithuanian host family. Initially unable to speak a word of English, he formed a lifelong ice hockey friendship with the host family's son. Later, now working as a professional coach in Switzerland, Boulanger receives an offer to coach Lithuanian youth national teams. Without hesitation, Boulanger says "yes," leading him to meet Tomas Andrejauskas, Co-Founder of Aprèsport and the father of an aspiring hockey player. Together, they develop Aprèsport—a product line based on natural active botanical ingredients including  Cannabidiol (CBD) aimed at enhancing performance, injury prevention, and faster recovery.

Doug Boulanger: For me, it was a way to give back. During my years as a hockey player, I met some incredible people, not only on the ice but also off the ice. Aprèsport is, I would say, the result of friendships that led to the people I met developing Aprèsport. Tomas as Co-Founder witnessed first hand the toll that intense training and competition can take on an athlete's body. His son faced recurring microtrauma that hindered his progress and potential. It was this insight that spurred him to seek a solution – a product line that didn't just heal but also prevented and protected.

The fundamental thing for me as a coach is to help the players I work with—to make them better, find clubs for them, and make them feel better. It's not just about boosting their performance; it's also about being there for them. When you talk about confidence, the success formula for an athlete involves four things: hard work, repetitions, recovery before and after the game, and this is where the Aprèsport concept comes into play. The last part of this is, once you have the hard work, repetitions, and recovery, it just needs the good stress—the stress that gives you the chance to be creative.*

Generally speaking, the market is full of universal products, relaxation, and trauma gels. We provide a dedicated product line for athletes, and we do this on an organic natural basis. Our products are based on our proprietary herbal formula that includes CBD and other beneficial botanical ingredients, that possess therapeutic benefits. The concept is based on four products:

The entire product range is developed by scientists focusing on the research and applicability of natural herbal remedies. In the development process, we made sure to have a lot of reality checks with different athletes during training and competition periods, even when preparing and running marathons. The athletes used the product ranges, of course, differently depending on the sports they practiced, but all of them had an almost intuitive approach.

Yes. It is certified THC-free, safe, and legal to use. The World Anti-Doping Agency allows CBD use. But it is not only CBD. Our patented herbal formula does the job, by combining botanical ingredients that possess therapeutic properties and work in synergy. The athletes, especially the hockey players I train in Switzerland and on an international level, loved the effect, the smell, and how easy it was to apply. We received much important and positive feedback during the development process and still do. And again, Recovery is one of the most important things for an athlete, and Aprèsport supports that perfectly, in my opinion.

Very few topical products in the market are explicitly designated for athletes' use. Most products are all-in-one or one-for-everything concepts and do not address specific issues that athletes encounter. Aprèsport is an entirely new concept designed for the specific needs of both athletes and amateurs. The beauty of this concept is that when you use Aprèsport products as a system, for example, cooling cream right after a workout and deep relief gel before bed, you may achieve incredible results. We have prepared condition-specific protocols on when and how to use these products. I have not seen anything like this with other topical products in the market, which is why the Aprèsport concept is so unique.