Can Chewing Gum Increase Punch Resistance?
It makes sense, right? Chewing in general strengthens the jaw area, and if you can do so all the time with some gum, it must help you take hits better?
Not really
Considering the fact that fighters get knocked out because the brain inside their head gets rattled, jaw strength in of itself has nothing to do with it, which is what chewing does.
What can help here is focusing on building neck and upper shoulder strength, which involves the trapezius muscles. This will help you take shots better, and can reduce the chance of getting knocked out.
The video below will set you off on the right foot:
But it’s not useless
Now even though I think, just like many other people who follow boxing, that chewing gum won’t help much to increase your knockout resistance, I still think it’s better than nothing.
Maybe it’s more for the peace of mind, but I’ve seen a lot of boxers, and fighters from other disciplines like MMA, do that all the time.
And while I can’t give you a source of anybody who says they do so to better their chin, many of us do assume that it at least does something good to it, as little as it might be.
I’ll tell you this – don’t just chew gum or whatever, do everything you can. That is, neck strengthening, work on your defense and then throw some rounds of gum chewing here and there.
You can even chew gum all day long if that’s what you want, but do it as you see fit :). Just don’t put all your eggs in that basket, so to speak.
What I did hear a lot though, is that chewing gum, and training at the same time, like working the pads, the heavy bag or what not, may help you bite down the mouthpiece more consistently when you actually get down to sparring.
And we all know how important can that be, especially for newbies.