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Fitness

Can Wearing a Mouthguard Increase Your Performance?

What if wearing a mouthpiece meant you recovered quicker from your workouts and kept the stress hormone cortisol away from the precious muscle-building proteins in your body?

Becca Borawski

Written by Becca Borawski Last updated on November 2, 2011

Coming from a background in combat sports, I am used to seeing my teammates train while wearing their mouthpieces. It is accepted practice that training with the mouthpiece will help your cardio, as it makes breathing more difficult. Scientists have been investigating the idea that mouthpieces aid in performance for the last four decades with varying conclusions. A recent study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning investigated the use of a mouthpiece during resistance exercise, as research indicating that the mouthpiece aids in building muscle strength and endurance has been difficult to replicate.

Researchers in this study tested the players’ cortisol levels before, during, and after a resistance workout. Cortisol specifically was measured due to the desire to test the theory that clenching or biting during stress can lead to decreased cortisol release. Previously it was shown biting down or chewing during stressful mental exercise decreased stress response in humans. It was also demonstrated in rats that biting down on a stick caused a decrease in corticotrophin releasing hormone. This hormone is part of the hyothalamo-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis and is elemental to the production of cortisol. If mouthpieces were determined to decrease cortisol levels, some of their performance enhancing benefits could be scientifically explained.

Test subjects were all between 18-22 years of age and were Division I football players. They were given two identical resistance exercise workouts, two weeks apart, and wore the mouthpiece during one of them. Players were custom fitted with Under Armour mouthpieces by a dentist. The workouts consisted of a 10-minute plyometric warm-up followed by sets of hang cleans, dead lifts, and single leg overhead shoulder press. Various assistance and mobility exercises were performed in between the main lifts.

Researchers found:

  • 10 minutes post exercise there was a 51% difference in cortisol levels between players wearing and not wearing mouthpieces, with non-mouthpiece wearing having the higher cortisol levels.
  • Mouthpiece wearers experienced a 29% drop in cortisol levels between the completion of their workout and 10 minute post-workout measurement.
  • Non-mouthpiece wearers, on the contrary, experienced a 48% increase in cortisol from the beginning of their workout to the 10 minute post-workout measurement.

The data from this study showed that both groups, mouthpiece wearers and non-mouthpiece wearers, experienced a similar shift in cortisol levels during their actual workout, but the recovery post workout was dramatically different. Mouthpiece wearers recovered significantly faster, exhibiting much lower levels of cortisol within 10 minutes of the workout. This would indicate that cortisol was available to the athlete when necessary, but the mouthpiece allowed a better potential for recovery from physical effort without the protein degradation typically caused by excess cortisol.

Further research is being done on the HPA axis, which as stated earlier is essential to cortisol production, and the belief that it is connected to the jaw muscles. If wearing a mouthpiece leads to less stress on the jaw, the HPA could have a decreased stress response. Therefore wearing a mouthpiece could be a direct connection to controlling cortisol levels in an athlete, decreasing protein degradation, and increasing recovery.

Becca Borawski

About Becca Borawski

Becca found her way to a career in health and fitness through Martial Arts and CrossFit. Originally a music editor for film and television, Becca started studying Martial Arts in 2000. Though she started with traditional Martial Arts it was not long before she discovered Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and her path was forever altered. She began training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) and Muay Thai and started working with professional MMA fighters, building websites, working on fight promotions, and producing videos.

As a competitor in BJJ herself, Becca wanted to get stronger and fitter. In 2006 she discovered CrossFit and became a student at CrossFit Los Angeles. In only a couple of years she became CrossFit Level III Certified, left her career in the film industry, and dedicated herself full time to coaching. She has since been certified through CrossFit in Olympic Lifting, Powerlifting, Nutrition, Endurance and Kids coaching. She also held an NSCA-CSCS from 2006-2008 and is a certified IndoRow instructor. In addition to coaching adults, she founded the CrossFit LA Kids program in 2010 and taught children aged 5-17.

Becca regularly takes on new sports, which have included indoor rowing, fencing, and most recently, cycling, as she believes it makes her both a better athlete and a better coach. In order to reach more people with her coaching, Becca also created ModernAthena.com – a website dedicated to women in pursuit of physical fitness and self-improvement.

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