How A Low-Tech Device Improves Performance and Recovery: Dr Dena Garner

What if I told you that there was a simple way to improve your
muscular endurance, reduce your respiratory rate when running,
reduce the production of lactic acid, slash your cortisol build
up in half, allowing for faster recovery times after every
run?  I bet you’d be all over it, right?  And then you
might be asking, what’s the catch?


My guest today is Dr Dena Garner and she’s spent the last 17
years of her career researching and developing a very simple
product that promises to do just that.


Dr Garner is a professor at The Citadel, one of six senior
military colleges in the United States.  She has degrees in
exercise science and muscle physiology as well as a postdoctoral
fellowship in neurology.  


At The Citadel, her research has concentrated on the effects of a
mouthpiece inserted over the lower teeth during exercise. She
measures physiological parameters of her subjects while using the
mouthpiece, including levels of lactate and cortisol, as well as
respiratory rate and has found some pretty incredible results.


Her research has shown that the specific way you place your jaw
and tongue, aided by a mouthpiece, results in a physiological
change in the airway, which improves performance outcomes. 
In addition to opening your airway, when you bite or clench down
on the mouthpiece during exercise, research cites an increase in
cerebral blood flow, which may be the link to the improvements in
cortisol and lactate.


Okay, okay, I know what you are thinking.  This is pretty
weird, right?  And I’m not afraid to say that to Dr Garner
in our conversation.  


But, if you think about it, it could make sense.   Think
about when you are concentrating hard on something.  Many
people instinctively clench their teeth or chew on a pencil or
their lip or a necklace or bite their nails. Why do we do
that?  What if it’s not just a habit your mom tries to get
you to stop doing?  What if it’s a stress-relieving
mechanism that’s evolved over time that actually does help us?


I don’t know about all that, but what I do know is that this
research is absolutely fascinating to me and potentially could be
a gamechanger in performance and recovery.  Let’s find out.


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