Under Armour Performance Mouthpiece
April 15, 2010
Ironman champion Chris McCormack wears one. So do multiple Olympians and NFL players like Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings. As a new category of sports accessory, “performance mouthpieces” — touted to increase strength and endurance, speed up reaction time, and reduce stress — are certainly catching fire.
Indeed, pro athletes and average exercisers by the thousands now slide a custom mouthpiece over their teeth before heading out to compete or play. Further benefits touted include improved flexibility, better breathing through the opening up of the airway, and quicker recovery after competition or training.
It gets neurological even. Bite Tech Inc., the Minneapolis company that makes Under Armour Performance Mouthpiece, cites a recent University of Minnesota study that links jaw clenching to stress hormone releases that may inhibit performance.
The theory is that clenched teeth, a natural response to elevated stress levels during activity, signal the brain to release chemicals that affect various parts of the body and hold back physical potential. Products like the Under Armour Performance Mouthpiece can help prevent that bad neurological juju, Bite Tech claims.
Too good to be true? Gear Junkie had to give it a try.
continued on next page. . .
This is an interesting concept that has been around for decades. Back in the 70’s, while working as a PT at Jack LaLane’s Health Spas, I met a dentist who was a client of mine. He and a few other orthodontists were develpoing this concept. Unfortunately, too many narrow minded people/companies thought it to be too absurd. I had worked with them for about a year on this product because of my athletic background. How unfortunate why so many forward thinking people are stifled by non progressive thinking companies. It’s nice to see this product come around. I only hope somewhere along the line these earlier individuals will receive credit.
It always amazes me why there are so many “get the edge” toys out there. We see lifting suits for power lifters, tape on the legs of sprinters, fish-like swim suits at the Olympics and many more. Whatever happened to good ole hard work, guts, dedication and train like a mad man/woman. I’m not impressed by these high tech devices. We might as well allow performance enhancement drugs to be legal if we want to see the super athletes!
If you all don’t mind a voice from the company that developed this technology, there are just a couple points I would offer for your consideration. First off, the benefits of our products, as a result of 15 years of research and testing, tend to be dramatic, not subtle. I encourage Stephen to do an A/B test where he wears our product for a week and the goes without it for a week and compares how he performs, feels and recovers.
We’re not trying to make anyone into a superhuman cyborg or anything. We just stumbled across a glitch in our evolution, if you will, a holdover of evolution that hurts us and doesn’t help us in the modern age; the teeth clenching phenomenon and the body’s “fight or flight” response.
Only our products correct the negative health impacts associated with clenching as a result of physical or emotional stress. Our patented wedge technology, called ArmourBite, makes it so that no matter how hard you clench, it reduces pressure on your TMJ so your body realizes it’s not being attacked by a lion. Our body needs adrenaline and cortisol in small amounts, but too much and a lifestyle of constant stress can lead to very harmful effects on your health and body and reduced athletic performance. Our products correct that with the least amount of material for the most benefit and with the best fit.
There is no way a company like Under Armour would have partnered with a little Minnesota oral appliance technology company unless our science was rock solid. We’re learning more every day about how and why our technology works and what happens in our body.
Also, our wedge is an impenetrable bite plate, so you can’t bite through it, even if you take a strong blow to the jaw, which greatly reduces the chance of concussion from such a blow. But if you get hit anywhere else in the head, an oral appliance isn’t gonna do much for you!
Essentially what we’ve done is discover that we can improve a human body’s performance non-invasively, without the use of drugs, by counter-acting only the negative impacts of the body’s natural response to stress. It will just take time for people to be educated about the facts and science behind it. It’s like we created the first tennis shoe, only for the mouth…and cooler.
I never knew mouth gaurds could influence your performance. I just think it is important to protect your teeth and for something to absorb the blow when a collision happens. I know that they can help reduce the effects of concussions, hadn’t heard about quicker reaction times.
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I usually chew gum on long bike rides. It has some of the same effects as the mouthpiece and cleans your teeth as well.