Want to play harder? Bite down on this

From Robbie Fowler’s daft nose plaster to Patrick Vieira’s Vicks-smeared chest, many footballers have sought innovative ways to open their airways and allow extra quantities of the ultimate performance-enhancing drug – oxygen – to pour bountifully into their grateful lungs.

Now a new product, the ArmourBite Mouthpiece, claims it can boost the quantities of air that its users take in, giving them a competitive edge in sports where speed and fitness are paramount.

Resembling the kind of brace that was inflicted on wonky-toothed teenagers in the 1980s, the ArmourBite works cleverly. It fits over your lower teeth, helping to maintain optimal spacing between molars and counteracting the natural desire to clench the jaw while competing.

This opens up the airwaves, allowing for 25 per cent less lactic acid to build up over a 30-minute session of training, along with an increase in strength of up to 20 per cent.

The creators of the mouthpiece also claim that your reaction times will improve while your levels of cortisol, the hormone which causes stress and fatigue, will decrease.

“Your jaw is the key to unlock the power you never knew was there,” says ArmourBite vice president, Eric Solem.

With the likes of Premier League stars Heurelho Gomes and Bobby Zamora on board, who are we to argue?

To find out more, check out the ArmourBite website: armourbite.com.