• Amândio Dias, Luís Redinha, Francisco Tavares, Luís Silva, Frederico Malaquias, and Pedro Pezarat-Correia.
• Neuromuscular Research Lab, CIPER, Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal; Department of Science and Technology, Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal, School of Higher Education, Setúbal, Portugal; Kinesiolab - Laboratory of Human Movement Analysis, Instituto Piaget, Almada, Portugal. Electronic address: amandio.dias@ese.ips.pt.
• Injury. 2022 Feb 1; 53 (2): 457-462.

BackgroundIt is widely accepted that mouthguards are effective for injury protection in sports. However, findings on the effects of mouthguards in strength and power production remains controversial. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine whether controlled-mandible position mouthguards influence strength and power production in well trained athletes.MethodsTwenty-two male amateur rugby players (25 ± 3.84 yrs; 1.92 ± 0.07 m; 93.91 ± 11.99 kg) volunteered for this study. Every participant performed an 1RM bench press test (113.20 ± 16.83 kg) to determine his maximal strength. In a randomized order, a ballistic bench press using 40% of the obtained 1RM (44.93 ± 6.76 Kg) was performed in a guided bar attached to a linear position transducer (LPT) for the following conditions: a) no mouthguard (CON); b) controlled mouthguard (MCM - jaw in centric relation); c) non-controlled mouthguard (NCM) and d) occlusal splint (OS). Vertical dimension of occlusion was also assessed for each of the testing conditions.ResultsAthletes using a controlled mouthguard demonstrate a significant (p < 0.05) higher peak acceleration and peak force than those using no mouthguard. Additionally, when analysing the results of vertical dimension of occlusion, a significant difference (p < 0.05) was observed between controlled mouthguard and the other tested conditions.ConclusionControlled mouthguards enhance peak force and peak acceleration in the ballistic bench press exercise without negatively affecting any other measure assessed in this study. We speculate that this is possibly due to an increased stability of temporomandibular joint.Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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