health/longevity & performance in gymnastics vs. bboy vs. circus

i'm interested in what you guys think are the differences in longevity/health and performance in gymnastics, bboying/breakdancing, and circus arts.

honestly, i think a lot of the bboy'ing stuff looks cooler than gymnastics, but i do worry about the longevity aspects of it.  one notable bboy, who calls himself crazy kujo, described many injuries in one interview.

i'm new to this stuff and have been checking out gymnastics and circus arts classes.  so far i haven't checked out any breakdancing classes.

so my question is twofold:

1. what are your thoughts about these three arts (gymnastics, circus, bboying) in terms of how they effect your health and longevity?

2. how do you think these three arts stack up in terms of performance (how do you think they measure up in terms of developing practitioners' physical skills?)

In circus arts, when you can't perform any longer, you feed the lions

In gymnastics, you become a coach

The Bboyz become Mmanz

............ or so I heard...

Realistically, gymnastics would be the most all encompassing, being a strength based art.  For example, I can't picture anyone doing any pulling exercises in breakdancing, can you?

obviously bboys would get injured more because breaking start learning moves even if there not yett physically capable and build there strength the learning process. 

I suspect bboys tend to injure their wrists more than gymnasts because most moves strain their wrist. Gymnasts however, have different events which would strain their wrists less e.g. parallel bars, high bars etc.

But I'm sure lots of gymnasts would disagree with me.

Breaking is hard in the body, both because people do not know too much of prehab, there arent many progressions except "try 10000 times". Since it is a dance, you freestyle very often which means you might throw moves from places you are not used to which can lead to accidents. I started as a bboy, i still dance and I know a lot of people in the community. I have seen some injuries in people over the years. Interestingly enough, knee injuries, especially meniscus, is what I have seen most of. When you do "footwork"(down on the floor) there are a lot of twisting motions in the hip which strains the knees if you dont have flexible hips. Of course people hurt their shoulders and wrists as well. I have seen a couple of serious shoulder problems, but not a massive amount. For wrists, people get small injuries all the time, but since you cant do anything at all when they hurt, they tend to heal up. This is at least my experience with the bboy community.

In gymnastics there are progressions and you practice a set routine safely and over years build a physique capable with the help of a coach. Same goes to a lesser extent in circus which has a lot of its technique based on gymnastic principles. In circus, since people specialize in certain disciplines the injuries are very specfic often. I have seen a LOT of shoulder problems in aerialists, often because of lacking retraction and external rotation. Pair acro porters naturally get back issues from catching saltos on their shoulders etc., same goes for teeterboard jumpers and those who takes landings coming from very high. In circus there also seems to be less preparatory elements than in gymnastics and less focus on building a capable physique, which from my experience leads to more injuries.

Of gymnastics I know less because i have never been one myself. Of course there are injuries as in any sport where people push limits. There are people on this forum that knows a lot more about it than me though.

As for the skill sets developed they are different. Breaking has its vocabulary of stuff that you find nowhere else, and so does gymnastics and circus. In breaking, since its a dance,creativity, musicality and attitude are just as important as the moves, and in circus you also need to develop skills as a performer(dance theatre presentation etc.) and understand scenic principles for how to structure your acts/shows. 

From my perspective, though it is specific, gymnastics done right will build the strongest and most all around physique of the 3.

Longevity is achieved by your approach to your training much more than the name of the art you choose to practice.  

If you stay with your practice over the course of the years you will see the performance of many of your peers decline due to the accumulation of avoidable injuries.  Lack of understanding the physical demands of certain moves, insufficient warm-up, insufficient joint/muscle prehab, impatience, etc. all can take a heavy toll.  

Longevity is achieved by understanding your art, understanding your body and then attributing the correct cost to injuries, which is to say studiously avoiding them and learning from any that do occur.

Knowing your art form well means you will have trained with very knowledgeable coaches, finding this teacher in the Bboy community may be difficult. 

Ronin, have you asked the same question to a bboying community and received thoughtful answers you could share with us? I'd like to know their point of view.

Handbalancer said:

Breaking is hard in the body, both because people do not know too much of prehab, there arent many progressions except "try 10000 times". Since it is a dance, you freestyle very often which means you might throw moves from places you are not used to which can lead to accidents. I started as a bboy, i still dance and I know a lot of people in the community. I have seen some injuries in people over the years. Interestingly enough, knee injuries, especially meniscus, is what I have seen most of. When you do "footwork"(down on the floor) there are a lot of twisting motions in the hip which strains the knees if you dont have flexible hips. Of course people hurt their shoulders and wrists as well. I have seen a couple of serious shoulder problems, but not a massive amount. For wrists, people get small injuries all the time, but since you cant do anything at all when they hurt, they tend to heal up. This is at least my experience with the bboy community.

 

In gymnastics there are progressions and you practice a set routine safely and over years build a physique capable with the help of a coach. Same goes to a lesser extent in circus which has a lot of its technique based on gymnastic principles. In circus, since people specialize in certain disciplines the injuries are very specfic often. I have seen a LOT of shoulder problems in aerialists, often because of lacking retraction and external rotation. Pair acro porters naturally get back issues from catching saltos on their shoulders etc., same goes for teeterboard jumpers and those who takes landings coming from very high. In circus there also seems to be less preparatory elements than in gymnastics and less focus on building a capable physique, which from my experience leads to more injuries.

 

Of gymnastics I know less because i have never been one myself. Of course there are injuries as in any sport where people push limits. There are people on this forum that knows a lot more about it than me though.

 

As for the skill sets developed they are different. Breaking has its vocabulary of stuff that you find nowhere else, and so does gymnastics and circus. In breaking, since its a dance,creativity, musicality and attitude are just as important as the moves, and in circus you also need to develop skills as a performer(dance theatre presentation etc.) and understand scenic principles for how to structure your acts/shows. 

From my perspective, though it is specific, gymnastics done right will build the strongest and most all around physique of the 3.

!!!!!!

adrien - no, i have not posted this question to any bboy forums.

Biggest issues with bboy:

• extremely high volume of impact on unyielding surfaces
• bone breaks, articular and connective tissue injuries

Biggest issues with gymnastics:

• Often a complete lack of balance between hip flexor tone and posterior chain tone. You can kind of think of this as flexibility, but it is really the relative tension generated by each at rest. This imbalance leads to hyperlordosis, a literal hallmark of gymnastics. This, in turn, leads to kyphosis, lower back pain, shutdown of some hip musculature, and ankylosing spondylitis and progressive issues (spondylosis, spondylolysis or, worse yet, spondylethesis).
• Imbalance in shoulder girdle tone and strength due to the vast majority of points being in protracted, kyphotic positions. this tends to lead to a lot of shoulder issues.

The GB courses, followed as prescribed and combined with Kit Laughlin's flexibility work, will do a good job of keeping you safe from these issues.

Circus: I'll let Yuri and Handbalancer comment on this. I don't know much about most of the circus arts.

handbalancer,

that was a great breakdown.  I actually have had some knee problems in the past.

how often do you see knee injuries in bboys?

We were actually talking about this today at the practice. Several people agreed that knees are the most injured part.  I probably have around 10-15 friends who have had knee issues from doing a lot of footwork. Its in the nature of the dance to throw down sometimes when you get the feeling and not neccesarily being well warmed up so I think a fair part of trouble happens due to that.

People with good internal and external rotation in the hip joint has much less problems with this because the twisting motions can come from there instead of loading the knee as much.

It's definitely all about how you approach training.  I know and have heard of many circus artists who have still trained and performed well into their 40s, 50s, and beyond. 

I also know plenty of people who got into a show they were not physically prepared for(i.e. one of the cirque shows or le reve) and ended up with some pretty good injuries.  The problem with a show like that is the high workload, and the expectation for generalists to perform as many acts as possible in the show.  This leads to very high volume specific movements usually performed on one side of the body.  Over a long period of time some damage can be done. 

The mentality in a lot of these shows is "surviving the week".  This leaves little time for extra training to correct those structural imbalances. 

Circus strength and conditioning is not as complete as most gymnastics S&C and often relies on some sort of cheat to get through it.  It ends up that a lot of people getting into circus arts are not physically prepared as they should be.  Combine that with some apparatus that are basically made to hurt you and you can see where the problems lie. 

Another problem is circus can be overspecialization which over time can create imbalances in the body.  However there is definitely a wide variety of things you can do with the circus arts.

Like Mikael stated, gymnastics has very well thought out progressions for the mostpart.  The main issue is the pressure of competition, and this often has a price.  Especially when it comes down to "learn this move in x amount of time". 

The problem with bboying is that most people are self-taught, which can cause issues.  That combined with repeated impact on hard floor with little prehab and joint prep.

Of course no system is complete.  It's all about understanding the movement and your own body's deficiencies. 

So basically take away the pressure of competition and gymnastics is a good strategy for longevity?

(Totally expecting biased answers)

Ravn said:

So basically take away the pressure of competition and gymnastics is a good strategy for longevity?

(Totally expecting biased answers)

We'll know in 75 years

Ravn said:

So basically take away the pressure of competition and gymnastics is a good strategy for longevity?

(Totally expecting biased answers)

 

 

There's nothing wrong with competition, it is a great motivator. 

There are just different ways to approach it if longevity is the goal. 

anyone have any experiences with capoeira? 

please tell me about health/longevity and performance in capoeira.

I'd expect capoeira to be similar to bboy in the points raised above, although its easier to find good quality capoeira instructors compared to bboy instructors. Also it depends on the type of capoeira you train. Angola is slower and about more controlled movements low to the ground while regional is faster paced, more aggressive and acrobatic therefore likely to put higher strain on joints. Like bboying, capoeira is about expressing your body and making sudden adaptations based on your partner's movements which could lead your body into potential injury situations. It is however not about being as flashy or pulling off the sickest trick which could easily cause injuries. Of course some capoeiristas go for more acrobatic styles and crowd pleasing moves, but something like attempting a double airflare *probably* wouldn't happen in a roda. Capoeira being practiced nearly exclusively on hard surfaces increases the likelihood of joint problems (it occasionally aggravates my 'jumpers knee'), but training angola wouldn't be so much a problem as everything is so slow and controlled. Finally, apart from flexibility, there is little to no focus on mobility or prehab in capoeira or bboys. 

I'd say capoeiristas have longer longevity than bboyers. There are mestres well into old age that still practice, whilst bboy careers seem much shorter lived (this could also be that its a much younger activity so hasn't had the same time to mature). If you train safe, I guess you could do capoeira to a very high standard as long if not even longer than gymnast or circus performer careers. I feel it puts far less strain on the body than the gymnastics or the short amount of circus training I've had. 

haha, i'm still thinking about this thread months later=)

handbalancer,

you mentioned that people get knee injuries in bboying from doing footwork.

can you bboy without doing footwork?  

thanks

Ronin168 said:

can you bboy without doing footwork? 

Given that it's a style of dance, I'm going to hazard a guess at no.  Sounds to me like it's the same as asking 'can you do gymnastics without doing a handstand?'  And while I guess technically you could do a lot of the different elements, there's no way you'd get away with it in competition.

A good example is my country, Finland, where the lack of progressive and holistic approaches in most circus schools etc. ruins people pretty quickly. The circus arts are by most part based only on making the poor creatures as inhumanly flexible as possible, with no strength conditioning whatsoever.

During high school we once trained with a 15 year old circus girl, who had her back almost totally destroyed by circus stuff. Her bridge flexibility was ridiculous, and coupled with naturaly loose joints and no strength conditioning, she was totally unable to do any kind of dynamic or ballistic work, such as a backhand spring. She easily did walkovers with no effort, but just could not do it dynamically due to pain and just not "getting" it.

She soon had to quit all circus stuff, and I would not like to see in what condition her spine is in ten years!

Thank God for GB.

Ronin168 said:

haha, i'm still thinking about this thread months later=)

 

handbalancer,

 

you mentioned that people get knee injuries in bboying from doing footwork.

 

can you bboy without doing footwork?  

 

thanks

bboy is the entire thing. You can learn all the powermoves and flash stuff, but without the footwork, its not bboy. 

Its the same with Capoeira. You can learn to play in a roda and do all the moves and stuff, but without learning the music and language as well, you're not doing Capoeira.

But train what you want to train. Do it for fun, not to say you bboy or do Capoeira. I absolutely hate the sound of the berimbau so I don't learn the Capoeira music. I don't mind that I'm not doing 'Capoeira' or that my teacher disapproves. I do it for fun, and that part definitely isnt fun for me. 

But most importantly, train safe, condition yourself properly and your knees and body will be fine.

swhitley said:

bboy is the entire thing. You can learn all the power moves and flash stuff, but without the footwork, its not bboy. 

Its the same with Capoeira. You can learn to play in a roda and do all the moves and stuff, but without learning the music and language as well, you're not doing Capoeira.

 

But train what you want to train. Do it for fun, not to say you bboy or do Capoeira. I absolutely hate the sound of the berimbau so I don't learn the Capoeira music. I don't mind that I'm not doing 'Capoeira' or that my teacher disapproves. I do it for fun, and that part definitely isnt fun for me. 

 

But most importantly, train safe, condition yourself properly and your knees and body will be fine.

Just adding to:  Capoeira isn't just a flashy style of dance developed in Brazil it is also a martial art.

Joshua Naterman said:

Biggest issues with bboy:

 

• extremely high volume of impact on unyielding surfaces
• bone breaks, articular and connective tissue injuries

joshua,  when you mentioned that there are articular and connective tissue injuries associated with bboying, are you referring to stress on the wrists hitting the ground or to just not being physically prepared for moves?

thanks

swhitley said:

bboy is the entire thing. You can learn all the powermoves and flash stuff, but without the footwork, its not bboy. 

Its the same with Capoeira. You can learn to play in a roda and do all the moves and stuff, but without learning the music and language as well, you're not doing Capoeira.

 

But train what you want to train. Do it for fun, not to say you bboy or do Capoeira. I absolutely hate the sound of the berimbau so I don't learn the Capoeira music. I don't mind that I'm not doing 'Capoeira' or that my teacher disapproves. I do it for fun, and that part definitely isnt fun for me. 

 

But most importantly, train safe, condition yourself properly and your knees and body will be fine.

yeah, i'm considering doing something like this (like doing a hybrid style where i mix different movement practices together).  i've been taking formal gymnastics lessons since august, and i am not impressed at all with the level of instruction from adult gymnastics coaches.  i learn more from youtube and other websites than from the actual coaches.