Lindner SM. Injury Prevention oft he Breakdancer’s Wrist. Master thesis, University of Barcelona. 2014.


Background: Breaking is a young subculture and has its origins in the 1970s in New York. Therefore, little scientific research has been conducted in this field. Due to the fact that a breakdancer is a dancer as well as a highly trained athlete, detailed analysis about the dance, its risk factors and injury prevention has to be made.

Objective: A common risk factor for wrist pain in breakdancers is the limitation of the wrist extension (dorsiflexion). The aim of this master thesis is to investigate the wrist mobility of breakdancers by achieving a preventive wrist protocol containing auto-tractions from the manual therapy, strengthening and stretching of the forearm muscles.

Methods: The wrist extension was measured with a standardised goniometer in two different measure positions of both wrists in 22 Spanish breakdancers. Data and pre-measurement was collected at the beginning. The post-measurement was made after four weeks of executing the interventional protocol twelve times.

Results: In three measurements the extension of the intervention group had a significant increase (p<0.05) and a large effect size was demonstrated. In total, there was an increase between the pre- and the post-measurement of an average of 6.925% in the intervention group. The control group showed no significant increase.

Conclusion: Adapting exercises for wrist injury prevention to the common breaking training increased extension. Additionaly, the participants described a better stability, more force and no indisposition or pain during extreme weight-bearing positions and moves in breaking.

Keywords: wrist injuries, prevention, dancer, breakdance, break