Background Breakers/Hip-hop dancers perform some of the most physically demanding dance genres. Research supports that these dances’ biomechanical forces and extreme range of motion exceed most athletes, which leads to injuries.

Objective To evaluate chronic low back pain (LBP), in relation to an injury definition:’to have low back injury which completely stopped the dancer from taking part in dance activity for 24+ hours, in 2+ incidents in the last 3 months‘ (Brooks, 2005).

Design A non-experimental, descriptive study investigating the retrospective self-report injury epidemiology of breakers/hip-hop dancers in relation to LBP.

Setting The study took place initially in a dance studio(N=5), and partially via videocall(N=58) due to 2020 lockdown. The participants were Cypriot dancers of hip-hop and/or breaking, who danced professionally or recreationally, competing nationally or internationally in battles.

Participants The selection procedure took place via an online open call. Entry criteria consisted of being 18–45 years old, male or female dancers/teachers of hip-hop and/or breaking for 1+years 3+hours/week. 63 local dancers entered and finished the study(LBP N=7,No LBP N=56).

Assessment Data was collected by a physiotherapist who is a hip-hop dance scientist, via interview, questionnaires and Beighton score.

Main Outcome Measurements Beighton General Joint hypermobility Score, Oswestry Disability Index, Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia, Visual Analogue Scale.

Results 84.1% of dancers were injured during data collection, 95% of which were women. 84.1% had some type of injury in the thoracic or low back area, 90.3% of which were breakers. 52.3% had positive Beighton score, and were all injured during data collection.

Conclusions This is the first ever study on low back pain injury epidemiology on hip-hop/breakers, and the LBP definition used may not have been appropriate for this group of dancers.