Want To Improve Team Communication? Your Players’ Mouthguards May Help!

As a coach or athletic trainer, it’s important for you to communicate with your team. The better you’re able to understand your individual players — from intimate knowledge of what they like and don’t like to how they respond to certain situations and ways to keep them focused — the better your team performs.

But communicating doesn’t always have to be done verbally. Sure, you should have open lines of communication with all of your players, but everyone is different; some players speak more openly than others. Sometimes you just have to pay attention to a player’s body language or mannerisms to gain insight into what they’re thinking.

Well, did you know your players’ mouthguards actually say a lot about them? Let’s examine how you may be able to get into your players’ heads by looking at what’s in their mouths:

1. What does it mean when your players chew on their mouthguards?

A chewed up mouthguard means your player is distracted and not performing up to their full ability.

This is a very common problem for any athlete wearing a generic boil-and-bite mouthguard. Because boil-and-bite guards are basically big chunks of rubber, they are uniformly thick all the way around. That means your players are getting bulkiness where comfort is needed, making it extremely difficult to breathe or communicate properly on the field, court or ice. And that’s detrimental to the way they play.

Have you ever had an annoying tag in the back of your t-shirt? It’s pretty distracting when you constantly need to readjust your collar. Well your players are equally distracted by that clunky, ill-fitting mouthguard; constantly needing to take it out or readjust it, rather than focusing on the task at hand.

Specifically engineered to fit each athlete’s individual mouth structure, custom mouthguards don’t just allow your players to speak and breathe uninhibitedly — which actually helps to improve performance — but removes a major distraction altogether.

That means your players are focused and their mouthguards still look like mouthguards.

2. What does it mean when you find your players’ mouthguards left on the field?

Simply, it means your players are unprotected.

Whether their generic mouthguard fell out — meaning it wasn’t providing the proper protection to begin with — or it was taken out and “accidentally dropped” because it was uncomfortable, your players are vulnerable to injury.

The whole point of a mouthguard is to help protect an athlete’s mouth and jaw from the impact of contact to the face or mouth. But they only help protect when they’re actually worn and in the proper place. If your players’ mouthguards are “falling out,” then their mouthguards aren’t effective.

Only a mouthguard that is custom-made to perfectly fit your players’ mouth stays in the exact place it needs to be to protect your players. And much like with comfort, when your players know they’re properly protected, they only need to worry about their next assignment or next play; not what’s going on in their mouths.

Proper protection doesn’t just go a long way to keeping your players focused, it actually helps keep your mind on your game plan rather than things like athletic equipment.

3. What does it mean when your players’ don’t have their mouthguards?

Again, they are not protected. But injuries aren’t the only thing your team is susceptible to when players forget their mouthguards at home, in their locker or “lose” them altogether.

Most leagues — from pee wee to professional — aren’t just making mouthguards a mandatory piece of the uniform; they’re now enforcing penalties on teams and players for not properly wearing them. Is a two-minute penalty or a 10-yard infraction really worth it when your players are also leaving themselves open to an easily avoidable injury? What about when an athlete is forced to leave the court, ice or field for failing to have a mandatory piece of equipment?

Players “forget” or “lose” their generic boil-and-bite mouthguards on purpose because they are ugly, uncomfortable and ineffective. They don’t value those mouthguards; they’re simply forced to have them. But what if your players actually cherished their mouthguards? Have you ever seen a player “lose” their jersey or lucky socks?

With a completely personalized mouthguard — from color and logo to name and number — your athletes don’t just get a piece of equipment they’re forced to wear, but a new piece of team gear they value as much as their jersey. It gives them an identity.

And a custom mouthguard with a player’s personalized name, number and team logo instantly becomes a favorite piece of their uniform and an essential component of completing their game face. That’s something that doesn’t get left at home.

Open up communication and get to know your players better with custom gear from Gladiator Custom Mouthguards, the industry-leader in personalized mouthguards.

Get To Know Your Team

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.