Cross-sectional study observes high injury prevalence across amateur and professional breakdancers, highlighting an urgent need for medical support and targeted prevention strategies.
Key Points
To evaluate and compare the 24-month injury prevalence and associated risk factors between amateur and professional male breakdancers.
Administered a 27-item online cross-sectional questionnaire to 646 male breakdancers in China, categorized into amateur (n=468) and professional (n=178) cohorts by self-assessed skill rank and cumulative training hours.
Assessed between-group continuous variables using Mann-Whitney U tests, categorical variables using chi-square tests with Bonferroni correction, and clustered injury factors via generalized estimating equations.
At least one injury was reported by 90.4% (584/646) of dancers across 1,000 documented cases, with no significant difference between amateur (89.3%) and professional cohorts (93.3%, P=0.445).
The most common injury sites were the wrist, knee, shoulder, and waist, with professionals sustaining significantly more shoulder injuries than amateurs (21.3% vs 14.6%, P=0.031).
Insufficient warm-up, fatigue, and basic skill deficits were the primary self-reported contributing factors, and over 80% of participants lacked professional medical support.