Dr. Terry Forsberg, a dentist in Aptos, fits himself with a TENS device, which uses electronic sensors to gauge his facial muscles’ activity levels.

APTOS — Athletes are accustomed to making slight adjustments in order to optimize their performance. Golfers constantly tinker with their backswing, pitchers obsess over the rotation of their hips during a delivery, and basketball players worry about the position of their elbow during free-throw attempts. They don’t tend to consider the alignment of their bite, though.

Dr. Terry Forsberg thinks they should.

Forsberg is one of around 200 dentists across the United States and Canada who are trained to fit athletes (and non-athletes) for a new type of mouth guard, called the Pure Power Edge, which dentists and kinesiologists say could potentially improve athletic performance by five to 20 percent. That translates to 15 yards on a drive for a golfer, three or four miles per hour on a fastball, or one more free throw out of 10 for a basketball player.

The idea behind the mouth guard is to adjust, ever so slightly in some cases, the position of the mandible so as to relax the muscles of the face. Freeing up energy that would otherwise be spent compensating for a bad bite can result in greater endurance, better balance, and a slight increase in flexibility.

Don’t believe it? Here’s a quick test: Stand up straight, with your arms spread out like the blades of a helicopter propeller. Now rotate around your hip, keeping your feet in place, and have a second person record how far you can reach behind you. Most people can reach back around 90 to 120 degrees.

Now repeat the maneuver, but do so while biting down on a pen (or similarly shaped object), so as to keep your teeth from touching each other. It turns out that nearly everyone can rotate farther when his or her mouth is open slightly. That’s why if you study a golfer like Tiger Woods, you may notice that he often sticks his tongue out a bit.

“Subclinically, in his mind, his jaw is wanting to be slightly forward and down,” Forsberg said.

Forsberg, who operates a small dentistry called Advanced Smile Designs off State Park Drive in Aptos, became involved with Pure Power two months ago. Before that, the majority of his research and practice was in dealing with patients complaining of TMJD, or Temporomandibular Joint Disorder. TMJD can affectthe ability of patients to open their mouths, and can result in headaches, clicking or popping in the jaw and often produces significant neck and back pain.

“One of the things we found out with doing all the work up to this with the TMJ patients is that we’d give them better neck posture,” Forsberg said.

Having the skull directly aligned with the cervical vertebrae improves posture, relaxes muscles, and increases the body’s natural flexibility and sense of balance.

Forsberg met Dr. Aniel Makkar, the Pure Power Edge’s inventor, while studying for his fellowship at the Las Vegas Institute for Advanced Dental Studies.

“He got the idea that if (realigning the jaw) is improving the level of health in people with really bad bites, how would it help athletes that don’t have any obvious issues with their body?” Forsberg said.

“For track and field, it might mean a tenth of a second. And this is a healthy way (to achieve that), without having to use steroids or any other thing that could be detrimental for your health,” he said.

Several big-name athletes, including Michael Beasley, Lamar Odom and Manny Ramirez, already use mouth guards, despite playing in relatively low-contact sports.

But the basic idea behind the Edge mouthpiece is neither new nor unique to Pure Power. In the 1980s, Dr. Harold Gelb, founder of the Craniomandibular Pain Center at Tufts University in Boston, developed a device called the MORA — a mouthpiece, of sorts, that members of the Olympic luge team wore during competitions. The MORA, or Mandibular Orthopedic Repositioning Appliance, essentially performed the same function as the Edge, without the computerized sophistication.

Where the newest mouth guard differs is in its precision. In order to be fitted for the mouth guard, patients attatch a bizarre device called a TENS device, or Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation, to their head. The TENS device is fixed with four electronic stimulators, which send a mild pulse into the facial muscles, while a computer records their activity levels. Using the electronic data, a doctor can infer what the jaw’s optimal position for any individual will be, and thus fit the mouthpiece accordingly.

Dr. Chris Farrell, who is based in Australia, works with both the Myofunctional Research Co. as well as Shock Doctor, a sports-equipment manufacturer that produces high-end mouth guards.

“The validity of such claims of improving strength (are) correct but controversial,” Farrell said via e-mail. “Like many newer things, the professions often argue for years. ... It does not so much stop wasted energy, but improves the mechanics of the upper third of the body.

“A custom-made mouth guard fabricated by someone who knows what they are doing could be more effective than the Shock Doctor Power Double (which Farrell designed), but may be less effective depending on the jaw positioning, which relies on the knowledge and skill of the individual dentist.”

Other mouth guards, including the widely sold Shock Doctor, primarily protect against concussion (the reason for wearing a mouth guard in the first place). The Edge, which fits over the top row of teeth like a Shock Doctor, is meant to be worn as a protective mouth guard during contact sports such as football, boxing or ice hockey. Pure Power also offers a companion piece, which Forsberg says he uses, that has no protective features and fits over the bottom row of teeth, or the mandible, and is solely for use during sports like golf, track, cycling and dance.

“Between 80 and 90 percent of the country has imperfect bites,” Forsberg said. “But most people accommodate to it. They don’t have headaches, they’re not aware of severe wear issues. So they’re running around with bites that could be better.”

To the makers of the Edge, that means a huge potential market.

“They expect probably in the next two or three years, most athletes will be wearing this appliance,” Forsberg said.

One potential stumbling block standing between the mouth guard and the general public is the price: A custom fitted mouth guard, including the two consultations with a dentist necessary to correctly chart one’s bite, runs from $995 to $1,595. A youth-sized appliance costs $749, and needs to be replaced about once a year to allow for growth.

Anything to squeeze a few more yards out of that drive, it seems.



•••

(Published on July 19, 2008)

•••

Photo by Tarmo Hannula/Register-Pajaronian

Share on Facebook