Register

Bridging the Gap: Improving Athletic Performance
June 26, 2025 | 8:00am - 4:00 pm | In-Person at The Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Cost: $399 ** Special Pricing This Year Only! | Limited to 20 people 
This year's sponsor is SDI Matrix...thank you for your support!
Note, you must have taken the ASD Team or ASD Sports Dentist Course prior to this course.

Main Session
Measuring Muscle Physiology in Sports Dentistry
Dr. Raj Rav 

There are hundreds of types of mouthguards or sports appliances out there. Every day a specialist wakes up one day and says “EUREKA” …. A new mouthguard!

Which one do we select?

Is it all about the design? Of course, the design is important. But what if we can provide more than just a “GUARD”? What if we can incorporate the aspect of PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT into the mouthguard? Phonetic Bite? CR Bite? Muscle Facilitation Test Bite? Dynamic Decompression Bite? K7 Bite Nm Bite? Chan Bite? Anterior Jig Bite? There are no research papers yet to prove this unfortunately.

A mouthguard that’s fabricated with the bite registration done on a “TENS-induced EMG-verified bilaterally-symmetric-isotonic-muscular-trajectory” is my go-to method as it’s evidence-based. This is how Neuromuscular Dentistry can help an athlete attain a balanced posture from head to toe. The team trainer or physiotherapist works on the posture of the athlete after the event only for the athlete to go back to the faulty posture the next day itself. This is because the importance of the maxillo-mandibular position is not given enough credence.

From something as small as a tongue-tie to checking cranial nerve functioning and confirming the sway and gait patterns; and making the necessary orthotic keeping all these in mind will help us create that perfect sports appliance for the athlete. 

Key Takeaways:

• To understand the importance of muscle tonicity while registering a bite.
• To know how to confirm the bite using modern technology.
• To understand how we, dentists, are more than just TOOTH-DOCTORS!
• How dentists can objectify the occlusal imbalances that can affect posture and hence affect performance.

Speakers

Dr. Raj Rav  Joining us in-person from India.  Connect on LinkedIn	Dr. Stavros Avgerinos Joining us in-person from Germany. Connect on LinkedIn	Dr. Jan Chithalen Joining us in-person from Canada. Connect on LinkedIn

Key Takeaways

• Be confident discussing this type of sports dentistry support to athletes and athlete support teams
• Understand the common errors in taking an athlete's physiological bite. 
• Knowledge of how to transfer an athlete's physiological bite to a mouthguard or sporting oral appliance. 
• Understand the importance of athletic testing of the physiological bite mouthguard or sporting oral appliance. 

The Mouth-Body-Connection in Competitive Sports

Dr. Stavros Avgerinos

In this presentation there will be a brief overview of the influence of oral health on the organism as a whole. In the subsequent sections, we will focus on two areas of enormous importance in high-performance sport.

• The effect of mouthguard design on the athlete's performance and well-being and thus also on compliance will be demonstrated with case studies, sports medicine measurement methods and the current evidence base.
• The importance of early periodontitis diagnostics (pre-destructive) for the detection of silent inflammation in competitive sports.  

Practical Pearls & Assessments with Dr. E. Jan Chithalen

• "If you can measure it is a fact. If you cannot measure it is an opinion"
• Examples of tools to measure the impact of neuromuscular dentistry in sports.
• Practical examples of neuromuscular appliances in athletes.

ASD is excited to work with SDIMATRIX on this presentation.

        Academy for Sports Dentistry 
         Nationally Approved PACE Program Provider for FAGD/MAGD credit. 
         Approval does not imply acceptance by any regulatory authority or AGD endorsement. 
                                                           4/1/2022 to 3/31/2026. 
                                                           Provider ID# 211120