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In Breaking, the knee, the ankle and the hip are injury-prone parts of the body of a bboy and a bgirl. It is really important to get your lower extremities prepared to handle the high impact moves in Breaking. Read below to learn about injury prevention, cause of injury and get some advice.
To prevent injuries of the lower extremities it is important to train proprioception, balance and strength. Proprioception is one’s own individual perception, the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement. It is provided by proprioceptors in our muscles and joints.
It is important not only to train the strength of the muscles. Also train the intramuscular coordination! This means that the muscle knows when to contract and when to release.
To get a better balance, it’s important to train the coordination in order to stimulate the receptors in the knee. We have lots of receptors in the knee joint. Receptors are special nerve cells that can receive stimulus and give it to the central nerve system. With a trauma it can happen that some receptors don’t work anymore. So the interaction of the central nerve system and the muscle is disturbed. The consequence of this is that the responsiveness of the muscle decreases. Because of this the movements, balance and coordination of the body also decreases.
In the video THE BREAKER’S LOWER EXTREMITIES you can see some exercises to prevent knee, ankle and hip injuries.
Check out the video and you are going to learn:
There are different causes of lower extremity injuries.
Most of the knee injuries in urban dancers happen because of the “stop and go movements”. A “stop and go movement” is when you are moving quickly in one direction, suddenly stop and then quickly change your move into the other direction. This provokes a lot of rotation in the knee and this way the structure suffers.
Another reason for injuries in the knee is because there are lots of movements concerning weight loading in a maximal flexion of the knee. This happens a lot in the crouched position when doing footwork.
The transition from the standing position into the footwork position is another movement that can lead to injuries. Try to go down with control and have stabilisation in your knee the whole time!
A lot of injuries happen also because of bad technique, such as receiving hits on the knees due to accidents or crashing onto the floor. When you still don’t know how to do a move completely, try to use protection such as knee pads or train on a gymnastic mattress.
The cause of the typical groin pain which most bboys and bgirls get due to power moves like windmills, flair or airflair is because of a muscular weakness. The foot in windmills is being torn outside of the centrifugal force and the adductor muscle is too weak to resist. We have to specifically strengthen the beginning of the adductor muscles.
Try to balance your body weight. During footwork shift your body weight to get balance between your weight placed on your hands and feet. If you have your body weight placed more on your feet, your knees are going to suffer. If it is more towards your hands, your shoulder won’t like that.
Another advice is to do those moves you are able to do and which suit the anatomy of your body. Imagine you want to do a W. For this move you need a lot of internal rotation. If you don’t have enough internal rotation in the hip, work on other movements that better fit your body.
It is really important to warm up the hip muscles properly before doing power moves, especially when you have already got problems in the groin area. Swing your leg straight into flexion and extension. Try to stabilise your lower back and don’t get into a hyperlordosis. Also do swings to the side. You can change going from the front of your supporting leg to the back of it. Repeat this exercise until you feel properly warmed up.
Also By Urban Dance Health:
Breakdancing Injures: Common Damage Areas And Causes
Breakdancing: Warm Up Essentials
Urban Dance Health (UDH) is located in Stuttgart, Germany. It consists of a team of three physiotherapists who are internationally established dancers themselves, so they know both the requirements and the needs of dancers. They regularly conduct health workshops for dancers and dance teachers, offer health checks at events and publish tutorials and articles in the Urban Dance Health Blog. The Urban Dance Blog covers topics such as injury prevention, rehabilitation and regeneration as well as scientific research about how to maintain a long and healthy dance career. In order to promote the health of dancers in a sustainable way, UDH now also trains medical professionals in dance medicine. Doctors and therapists require the right tools to respond to the needs of dancers. This creates a worldwide network of health experts who enable interdisciplinary health care for dancers.
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