NOTICE:
DO NOT ATTEMPT TREATMENT WITHOUT LICENCED MEDICAL CONSULTATION AND SUPERVISION
This is a public discussion forum. The owners, staff, and users of this website are not engaged in rendering medical services to the individual reader. Do not use the content of this website as an alternative to personal examination and advice from licensed healthcare providers. Do not begin, delay, or discontinue treatments and/or exercises without licensed medical supervision.
I know this has been discussed in a few threads before but this issue is still unclear to me. I think we all agree that buccinator muscle atrophy is something worth pursuing as it allows to achieve that "hollow cheeks" look. That's why we correct our swallowing technique and perhaps avoid using our buccinators in many other situations as well.
At the same time we encourage training our masseter muscles by chewing. Whenever we do that we use our buccinators extensively to help "position" food / chewing gum right between our molars. If we move the gum around then we are likely using these muscles to move the gum between teeth. Even if we avoid the exagerrated chewing motion where we activate our buccinators in a "grimace" - we still use the buccinator muscle quite a bit.
Certain users claim that as long as you swallow correctly and do not exaggerate the chewing motion you shouldn't experience buccinator hypertrophy. Other users claim to have developed "chipmunk cheeks" due to chewing even if they followed aforementioned guidelines. Could you please share your opinion on the topic? Anyone who managed to obtain some masseter hypertrophy is encouraged to share his opinion whether it affected his buccinators as well.
If it turns out that we should avoid using buccinators during chewing sessions then only two ideas come to my mind. One of them would be to just chew on the gum using rigid up-down movements and eventually adjusting the placement of the gum using our tongue. This would also make moving the gum around teeth quite difficult if not impossible.
The other option would be to use something like Jawrzsize. Now I know it looks silly and has terrible, cringy marketing campaign. I would feel somewhat ashamed of it and surely wouldn't want anyone to know that I spent so much money on some chewing piece. But all of this aside - the fact is that it would definitely workout masseter muscles without activating buccinators at all. Plus it would prevent assymetrical growth of masseters plus provide a specific resistance and possibility of counting reps etc.
The only argument against it I've read in the other threads is that it doesn't allow for the "full range of motion". But wouldn't masseters be trained anyway? And doesn't the "full range of motion" actually include that buccinator activation which we want to avoid? In other words - is this a legitimate argument against using it and are there others?
Any additional observations / advices / experiences are much appreciated.
Bump. This is exactly what my problem is. Just chewed some falim and I look like a chipmunk. The pump is real. What I figured out is that I use my buccinators after every chew to re-push the gum to the back and reposition it in various ways.
One of them would be to just chew on the gum using rigid up-down movements and eventually adjusting the placement of the gum using our tongue.
I tried that but every time we chew the gum gets pressed so we need to rotate it and during the rotation it gets displaced.
As you said sonething like Jawzrsize would be good ig. A better one would be something that we attach to the mollars, which will have a gum-like thing. Then we could just open and close the jaw and we’d chew. the range of motion could be bad but i can’t think of any other solution