How does your bite affect your athletic performance? A breakdown by an orthodontist

MD, PhD, dentist and orthodontist

“Most athletes don’t begin dental work until after their careers are over, such as what happened to Ronaldinho and Mike Tyson. If they had corrected their bite and the positioning of their teeth at the dawn of their professional careers, there might have been fewer negative changes in their appearance. But first things first.”

What we’ll talk about

Why is a correct bite important?

The more balanced the body is, the better our muscular system works. Therefore, to improve athletic performance, it is necessary to take care of the bite and the health of the entire oral cavity. After that, it is necessary to diagnose the muscle tone and symmetry of the facial skeleton – this is necessary for making a special sports mouth guard, which should be worn only during classes or games.

The mouth guard fixes the jaw in a position that places the head in an ideal position in relation to the spine. This removes unnecessary strain on the muscles of the neck, shoulders and upper back plus at the same time frees up their potential and the person can show the strength of their abilities.

Modern sports mouthguards not only reduce stress, strain and injuries (problems with teeth, spine and ligaments, muscle tears and sprains), but also improve coordination, speed and accuracy of movements, as well as equalize muscle balance, thus accelerating muscle response and sometimes even speeding up the speed of this very muscle response.

The mouth guard is indicated for adults and children who are involved in sports clubs or who have devoted their lives to professional sports, and it is also not a hindrance for those who love fitness and a healthy lifestyle. However, here, as with any other interventions, a doctor’s consultation is needed.

How are teeth and sports performance related?

The first sports mouth guard (analog of a boxing mouth guard) was invented in 1892 by British dentist Wolf Krause, and half a century later American dentist John Stenger developed his own version of a mouth guard for Notre Dame soccer players.

As a result, the number of victories of this team increased several times, and Stenger was convinced that it was all the fault of his mouth guards, which took into account the distance between the jaws, reducing stress and unleashing the potential of a particular player. He reported this in his article Physiologic dentistry with Notre Dame athletes.

Since then, specialized publications have appeared with enviable regularity, confirming the direct link between a proper bite, oral health and athletic performance.

For example, researcher Richard Kaufman in his article An experimental study on the effect of MORA on football players concluded that positioning the lower jaw relative to the upper jaw at a certain height (for each person this height is different) can minimize the number of serious injuries and multiply the indicators of endurance, speed and strength, which only confirmed the opinion of John Stenger.

This idea interested other experts, who began to conduct various studies and eventually discovered the relationship between the position of the lower jaw and isometric muscle strength (force without movement). It turned out that there is no single constant and everyone has a unique position of the lower jaw in which the isometric strength of the neck and shoulder girdle muscles of a particular person is maximized.

Simply put, for an athlete to consistently score goals or win competitions and tournaments, he must not only be in his best physical shape, but his mouth must be in perfect order and his lower jaw must be in a certain position relative to the upper jaw.

How does dental and oral health affect appearance and the body as a whole?

Our body works like a finely tuned clock in which all the parts are interconnected. When everything is in place and balanced, it functions smoothly. When something goes wrong, for example, a tooth is lost or erased (its anatomical shape or size is disturbed), the balance is disturbed and a malfunction occurs. Changes begin to form not only in the oral cavity, but also in the entire muscular-skeletal framework of our body.

Let’s take soccer player Franck Ribery as an example. When he smiles, you can see that he does not have a wide smile: narrow tooth rows, crowding, that is, the teeth are turned on their axis (they are large in size, and they do not have enough space). Here he needs to have his teeth widened with orthodontic treatment with a bracket system.

Franck Ribery

Failure to do so will guarantee early signs of ageing, such as a sunken upper lip and pronounced nasolabial folds due to the loss of support from the upper incisors. But if you bother with this problem, a wide smile will visually rejuvenate it.

In addition, as a result of the violation of anatomy and erasure of the teeth of the lower jaw, it can be displaced to the back, which will lead to the fact that there will be a second chin, belly, will be narrowed airways, increased hypertonicity in the cervical region.

If we look directly at the oral cavity, the absence of a tooth leads to the fact that the quality of chewing food is impaired. When poorly chewed food enters the stomach in pieces, gastrointestinal problems can occur.

Also, later on, the missing tooth can be reflected in the fact that there will be a change in the bite. As a result of the disruption of clamping and the appearance of an incorrect trajectory of the lower jaw, the teeth will begin to erode, their height will begin to decrease – this will manifest itself in the form of a decrease in the lower third of the face, that is, aesthetically we will see more pronounced nasolabial and chin folds.

It should be remembered that with age, due to bone loss, the distance between the teeth may increase, but it will not affect the appearance dramatically. For example, former soccer player Michael Strahan has a diastema (gap between the central incisors), and there is a small gap on the left side behind the central incisor. In general, this is not a serious orthodontic pathology, the main point here is aesthetics.

Michael Strahan

If there is a problem with articulation, pronunciation of sounds, then in this case it makes sense to carry out orthodontic treatment, to reduce this distance, diastema (gap between the teeth).

Remember: any problems in the mouth will negatively affect not only your appearance, but also the body as a whole. Therefore, it is very important to brush your teeth twice a day, and it is also advisable to do it after every meal. In addition to this, you should have a professional cleaning once every six months, as well as regular visits to the dentist and orthodontist, if indicated.