Strength exercise with and without custom fitted bite: an acute study

AIM: The aim of this work was to analyze lower and upper limb strength when the weightlifters use or not the bite during weightlifting exercises. METHODS: Thirteen male weightlifters (age: 27±5 years mean±SD, weight: 78±7 kg and height: 176±4 cm) participated in this study. The athletes were asymptomatic. None of them received orthodontic treatment and/or orthognathic surgery in the past. The bites were made after axiografical registration (Gamma Dental, Klosterneuburg, Austria) and mounted in centric occlusion. The contacts of the teeth were monitored with the T-Scan III (Tekscan, USA). In order to avoid that the sequence order of all tests performed with and without the bite could bias the results, the athletes were divided into two groups: seven and six subjects. All exercises (bench press lat machine, overhead press, curl bar, push down, squat) were divided in two days and repeated twice on the same week. This means that in the first day the first group did the half of the exercises without bite and the second day the second part of exercises with bite. The second group followed opposite order. Force values with (FWB) and without (FNB) the bite were compared (non-parametric Wilcoxon test) both for each exercise (N=13 subjects, 6 exercises) and for the whole set of data (N= 78 values). RESULTS: No significant differences were found within each exercise. On the contrary, when all the values were pooled together, FWB resulted greater then FNB (+1%, P<0,01). In 2,6% of the cases (2 out of 78) FNB was greater than FWB; in 24,4% of the cases (19 out of 78) FNB was lower than FWB; and in 73,1% (57 out of 78) no effect of the bite was observed. CONCLUSIONS: These findings showed that bite effects on force values were different among subjects and exercises and, in general, no positive effects on acute strength performance were observed.