From the Duh File: Breakdancers get hurt

If you followed me when I wrote Help My Hurt, you’d know that I had a Duh File for what I considered to be Duh Studies. What’s a Duh Study? One that makes you scratch your head and think one of a few thoughts:

1. They got money from someone to research THAT?
2. Tell me something we don’t know.
3. You have got to be kidding me.

I have just found another one. Did you know that breakdancers get hurt? Yes! Seriously!! They do!!! They even did a study on it. Imagine that.

Ok, here’s the scoop. Researchers in Germany followed 144 breakdancers – both amateurs and professionals – and found that many of them got hurt. In fact, none of the professional breakdancers and only 4 percent of the amateur dancers had never been hurt. The study findings were published in the April issue of the American Journal of Sport Medicine .

According to an abstract of the article, the researchers undertook the study because they believed: “Professional breakdancing might lead to a higher incidence of injuries than amateur training. Wearing safety equipment is correlated with a decreased incidence of injuries and pain.”

The most common acute injuries were breaks of the wrist or hand, thighbone fractures, slipped spinal discs and concussions. There were also lots of overuse injuries (70 percent), which includes tendinitis.

Unfortunately, for the dancers, they also didn’t seem to give themselves enough time to heal properly, which increases the risk of reinjury.

On a serious note, the researchers recommend that breakdancers wear safety equipment to limit their injuries. On a less serious note – is this something we really didn’t know?

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Images: Stock.xchng and iStock