Don’t Rely On Luck To Avoid Injury: 3 Tips To Avoid Injury Without Luck

Avoiding injuries isn’t all about luck. Regardless of your sport, injuries to the mouth and face happen. Direct impact from elbows, fists, pucks, sticks or any hard hit that slams the upper and lower jaw together, may have very unlucky results:

• Approximately 5 million teeth are knocked out annually during sports and recreational activities.
• Athletes have a 33-56% chance of receiving an orofacial injury — an injury to the mouth or face — during their playing career.
• Broken bones heal. ACLs are repairable. A broken tooth lasts forever.
• The lifetime cost to replace just one tooth — with maintenance, appointments and surgeries — is approximately $20,000.

In addition to luck, avoiding injury requires the right equipment. Here are 3 tips to lower your player’s need to be lucky:

Fit Matters Most…
…which is why both the American Dental Association (ADA) and the Academy for Sports Dentistry (ASD) recommend a professionally made, properly fitted custom mouthguard for all contact and collision sports. In addition, the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) recommends that athletes to wear “properly fitted mouthguards during sports activities.”

Simply put, the equipment that fits the best, protects the best.

Proper Protection Is Equally Important
There is a delicate balance between comfort and protection. Too thick and the mouthguard will be uncomfortable. Too thin and it leaves your athletes open to serious injury.

Mouthguards should have at least 4mm thickness of material in the important impact zones — the areas in front of the teeth and under the molars, unless wearing a full-face shield.

Make It Theirs
Players need to wear their mouthguards or they don’t work. It’s that simple.

There are plenty of reasons why athletes don’t like wearing mouthguards — but what if they viewed their mouthguard as a piece of their uniform?

Start with their choice of 18 solid color options and endless color combination possibilities. Next, add the logo of their choosing — from our free or metallic logo options to team logos or something even more personal. Finish with their personal ID to truly put a mark on their one-of-a-kind mouthguard.

Only a Gladiator custom mouthguard is engineered for each specific athlete, their specific needs, their specific sport and their specific personality. Don’t rely on luck. Rely on Gladiator, the industry leader in combining comfort and protection. Learn more at the link below.

Don’t Rely On Luck To Avoid Injury

Author Bio

Bobbie Quinn, co-founder of Gladiator Custom Mouthguards, played both lacrosse and field hockey as a youth and went on to play Division 1 women’s lacrosse in college. Bobbie continues to play women’s league field hockey and enjoys watching her son play various sports.