The PEP Talk: Under Armour ArmourBite Review

Almost everything you buy related to sport claims to give some sort of benefit. Boots can make you run faster, shoot more accurately and improve your ball control. However, the accessories you wear have suddenly taken as much important as everything else.

While performance enhancing products have taken a hit after the PowerBand scandal, a Minneapolis based company have released a piece of technology that the boffins claim will improve your performance, make you 20% stronger over the course of a game and help you last 25% longer. And it’s all in the power of your jaw. Introducing the Under Armour ArmourBite from Bitetech, a revolutionary piece of technology that claims to unlock the power in your jaw that you never knew existed.

How does it work? Whenever you train or compete, the natural reaction is to clench your jaw. It’s a part of the human psyche. This triggers an excess production of cortisol, a performance sapping hormone. Plus your airway will be restricted. But with the ArmourBite, the multi patented Power Wedges are uniquely shaped to help maintain optimal spacing and counteract the negative effects of clenching your teeth. This will help with increased oxygen flow and will increase your strength by 20%, reduce lactic acid flow by 25% and help you recover quicker for the next time you play.

Fascinating right? Fortunately, Soccer Reviews has had it’s hands on the ArmourBite for several weeks now and we’ve finally come up with a conclusion on the Under Armour endorsed product. And you might be quite surprised with how it ends up.

Application

Everyone who has ever bought a mouthguard will know you have to go through the process of molding the mouthguard to your teeth. The ArmourBite is no exception. The instructions within the pack are pretty detailed and they go through the whole process, which takes about 10 or 15 minutes all together. The process virtually entails putting the mouthpiece into hot water, taking it out, contouring it to the shape of your teeth and then putting it in cold water. I’m not sure if I did the process correctly or not, but I find that the mouthpiece isn’t as secure a fit as I was hoping for. However, I think this could just be down to how I tried to fit the mouthpiece.

I thought the process would be the exact same as fitting a regular mouthguard (ie, you bite into a putty like substance to match the mould of your teeth). But because the mouthpiece is fitted on your bottom jaw (something that’ll take a bit of getting used to), this sees the application process deviate from the standard process of fitting your everyday mouthguard. BiteTech have done very well in detailing the process and, because the process is a lot different to a normal mouthguard, they’ve had to make it pretty detailed. The instructions make it very clear NOT to touch the soft material (the stuff that goes over your teeth) and the plastic fitting tool supplied makes the process a lot easier. If you want to see the instructions yourself, click here to be taken to the page on the BiteTech site.

However, since the review started, I’ve found out that many dentists in the USA offer a proper fitting service for the mouthpieces. While I’m not too sure about how much extra it would cost (I can’t see it being over $80 or so), I highly recommend to anyone in the USA to get their mouthpiece professionally fitted at a dentist. This will ensure that your mouthpiece perfectly fits to your teeth and you can even personalise your mouthpiece.

Performance

So here’s the part we’ve all been looking forward to. Let’s just go over what the BiteTech ArmourBite claims to deliver. The ArmourBite delivers multi-patened technology that helps athletes train harder and perform even harder. When under stress or strain, it’s natural for athletes to clinch their teeth. This leads to an excess production of cortisol, a performance sapping hormone. The benefits include increased strength by as much as 20%, up to 25% less lactic acid build-up to increase endurance, up to 12% quicker reaction times and reduced cortisol levels to help you recover quicker.

We tested out the ArmourBite through two different methods. Because it was my off season during the time of the review, I was restricted to using the ArmourBite when I went out running and when I went to the gym. While using it in a game is perhaps within the best intentions of the site, running was perhaps the closest way to replicate a game.

I’ll base this section on both my experiences from my running and whenever I went to the gym. Even though I commented that the fit of the mouthpiece wasn’t as snug as I thought it would be when I first fit the mouthpiece, I actually didn’t experience too much problem with it staying in my mouth. Perhaps it’s because of gravity, but the mouthpiece fitting over your bottom jaw helps to keep it in place. Full marks for the snug fit of the mouthpiece.

But it’s when you start exercising is when all the action happens. Something I found (this might sound really silly, but bear with me) is that wearing the mouthpiece promotes you to breathe through your mouth consistently. Let’s just say that when I was doing weights(yes, referees use weights just to make sure we aren’t pushed around on the field), I’d attempt to breathe consistently and in tandem to the exercise. If you were doing a bicep curl, you’d breathe out when you lift the weight, and then you’d breathe out when your lowering the barbell. It promotes you to breathe consistently throughout your exercise. And don’t worry that the ArmourBite makes it hard to breathe through your mouth. It keeps a good distance between your jaws so it’s not too difficult to breathe.

Perhaps this is how the ArmourBite promotes strength and endurance. It’s all fairly simple biology. If you have greater oxygen intake, more oxygen will be able to go around your body, which will decrease lactic acid and improve your strength etc. Plus lower levels of cortisol production will aid recovery.

In the end, that’s what the ArmourBite aims to do, it is a breathing utensil at it’s absolute basic level. But is it a scam? Unbelievably, no.

My gym does monthly measurements for your chest, biceps etc. Before the trial period, the measurement for my chest (which isn’t a reflection of muscle, but rather chest and lung capacity) was noted down. After a month or so using the ArmourBite, I went through the monthly measurement again. Now during this month, I was probably attending the gym twice a week and I would split my workouts between weights and cardio.

Various parts of my body were measured and I probably added one or two centimetres around my body (so legs, calves, hips, biceps, shoulders, stuff like that). We then got to my chest measurement. Incredibly, I added 11 centimetres to my chest during the period. The person who owns the gym noted this is a very abnormal result and indicates that this means my lung capacity is much higher, so in other words, I had gotten a lot fitter. However, she believes that the use of the ArmourBite is the most likely explanation for the growth.

It probably makes sense, remember how I mentioned the ArmourBite promotes regular breathing during exercise? We believe this would account for the large increase in my chest capacity, meaning that during the period where the ArmourBite was used, I’d managed to get a LOT fitter using the ArmourBite.

Conclusion

Performance enhancing products have been given a pretty bad name lately. The recent Power Band scandal probably shattered everyone’s confidence in these products. However, this is the first time I’ve ever used a performance enhancing product where the result can actually be seen. While we can claim to have better endurance when wearing compression garments, the ArmourBite genuinely worked. 11 centimetres growth in lung capacity in one month of casual gym use is outstanding and, perhaps for the first time, get the ArmourBite and perhaps come out with the same results!

The ArmourBite mouthpiece that we tested can be bought for $30 from the UA website, which you can get to by clicking here.