Injuries In Breakdance

Breakdance is a new sport, debuting in 2024 Olympic games. Succeeding and achieving top sports results in breakdance requires a wide range of high-quality technical elements, which cannot be performed without a high level of motor skills and exceptional energy endurance in a high-intensity zone. Previous studies of injuries indicate breakdancing as an activity with the presence of a risk of injuring the locomotor system. PURPOSE: To compare injuries gathered through survey and medical examination (sports medicine and orthopaedics). METHODS: Athletes from the Croatian Sports Dance Association, classes A and I, judges, and members of the Croatian breakdance national team participated in the research. HrBreak questionnaire was used. Descriptive statistics for parametric and non-parametric data were used, Fischer’s exact test for categoric variables. RESULTS: This is a cohort study including a total of 27 respondents in the first phase of the study. The respondents were aged 12-44, breaking experience 5-23 years. 23/27 (85.18%) responded they had injuries in the past that required no medical assistance (from the most to least common complaint - shoulder, wrist, knee, foot, back, neck, head, fingers, toes) and 15/27 had injuries in the past that required medical assistance (same regions as above) (Fisher’s Exact Test NS). Six athletes were referred to a specialist due to their health complaints. 5 had shoulder complaints and 1 foot (hallux valgus). 3 had shoulder contusions, and 2 suspected SLAP lesions with shoulder instability or subacromial impingement syndrome. One of the athletes underwent surgery due to SLAP 3 lesion. CONCLUSIONS: Contrary to popular beliefs that dancing breakdance will break your neck, we found it not to be true in our sample. A range of preventive measures should take place: correct technique, personal protective equipment, kinesiological training aimed at the weak spots of the athlete, and specific medical exams including orthopaedic tests screening. The study was funded by University of Zagreb Funding, Title of the project: Development of health screening and physical fitness assessment protocols for breakdancers, grant no. 10106-22-3045; Croatia, EU