Nothing quite compares to football season in Texas. Under the bright lights of a stadium, twenty-two warriors compete in a physical game of human chess. And believe it or not, practice for the fall season begins in just a few, short weeks.
Maybe you or your child plays this most American of games. You’ve finally tuned your body to its athletic peak. You’ve bought all the best gear.
Yet you wonder if there might be something else you can do to improve your performance. There is, and it might not be what you’d expect.
Plano Smile Studio now offers Under Armour Performance Mouthwear- a patented technology that not only protects your teeth- but is also scientifically shown to improve your athletic performance.
Sound too good to be true? It’s not, and in this blog post we’re going to explore both the science behind Under Armour Performance Mouthwear and its wide array of benefits for athletes.
The Science Behind Under Armour Performance Mouthwear
Football is an intensely physical game featuring hard-hits and high-impact collisions. When your body is placed under this sort of stress, your natural reaction is to clench down on your jaw. Everybody does it, it’s simple human nature, triggered by your brain’s “fight or flight” reaction.
Clenching your jaw in this manner is not only bad for your teeth, it also signals your brain to produce cortisol – the stress hormone.
Excessive cortisol production leaves you feeling fatigued, and slows the recovery time for your muscles- making you more susceptible to an injury.
Under Armour Performance Mouthwear has been scientifically shown to reduce your body’s cortisol production in an independent study conducted on collegiate football players by The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. (“The Effects of Mouthpiece Use on Cortisol Levels During an Intense Bout of Resistance Exercise.”)
How does Under Armour Performance Mouthwear reduce cortisol production?
Plano Smile Studio creates a mold for the Under Armour Performance Mouthwear which is custom-fitted to your mouth and teeth. In addition to proving outstanding projection to your teeth, the finished custom mouthpiece exerts a safe separation between your lower jaw and the rest of your skull. This separation prevents you from clenching your jaw, which prevents your body from producing excessive cortisol.
The Benefits of Under Armour Performance Mouthwear
Now that you’ve seen some of the science behind Under Armour Performance Mouthwear, we can explore a few of the benefits of the custom mouthwear. Since these benefits may seem to good to be true, we’ll also look at some of the many scientific studies that led to these conclusions.
Increased endurance. A study conducted at The Citadel had athletes perform bench presses and preacher curls over a two day period. On the first day, the athletes did not use custom mouthwear. On the second day, the athletes performed the same exercises wearing the custom mouthwear. On average, the use of the custom mouthwear increased the athlete’s maximum number of bench press repetitions by 10 percent, and their maximum number of preacher curls by 17 percent. (“The Effect of Mouthpiece Use on Muscular Endurance.”)
Improved breathing. According to a study published in The Journal of the American Dental Association, Under Armour Performance Mouthwear increases the amount of oxygen you take in while exercising while also increasing the amount of carbon dioxide you exhale. This improvement in breathing allows athletes to play harder for longer amounts of time. (“The Effects of Mouthpiece Use on Gas Exchange Parameters During Steady-State Exercise in College-Aged Men and Women.”)
Improved Reaction Time. A study published in the Compendium of Continuing Education in Dentistry showed that use of a custom mouthpiece improved athlete’s reaction times to both audio and visual signals. Over a cycle of 70 trials, athletes responded faster to the signals when wearing a mouthpiece. Improved reaction times increases hand-eye coordination, a vital skill in football. (“Effects of Mouthpiece Use on Auditory and Visual Reaction Time in College Males and Females.”)
Make An Appointment
Are you ready to unlock you or your child’s full potential on the football field?
Do you want to increase your endurance on the gridiron so you can break free of a few more tackles en-route to the endzone? Do you want to improve your breathing so you aren’t out of breath after endless 40 yard dashes and up-down drills? Do you want to improve your reaction time to ensure you’re bringing in that last second hail mary pass?
Then click here to make an appointment today at Plano Smile Studio. Our professional team will explain everything you want to know about Under Armour Performance Mouthwear, and how it can improve your game.
