Research

Christmas 2008: Music

Head and neck injury risks in heavy metal: head bangers stuck between rock and a hard bass

BMJ 2008; 337 doi: 10.1136/bmj.a2825 (Published 17 December 2008)
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2825
  1. Declan Patton, research assistant,
  2. Andrew McIntosh, associate professor
  1. 1School of Risk and Safety Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia 2052
  1. Correspondence to: A McIntosh a.mcintosh{at}unsw.edu.au
  • Accepted 6 November 2008

Abstract

Objective To investigate the risks of mild traumatic brain injury and neck injury associated with head banging, a popular dance form accompanying heavy metal music.

Design Observational studies, focus group, and biomechanical analysis.

Participants Head bangers.

Main outcome measures Head Injury Criterion and Neck Injury Criterion were derived for head banging styles and both popular heavy metal songs and easy listening music controls.

Results An average head banging song has a tempo of about 146 beats per minute, which is predicted to cause mild head injury when the range of motion is greater than 75°. At higher tempos and greater ranges of motion there is a risk of neck injury.

Conclusion To minimise the risk of head and neck injury, head bangers should decrease their range of head and neck motion, head bang to slower tempo songs by replacing heavy metal with adult oriented rock, only head bang to every second beat, or use personal protective equipment.

Footnotes

  • Contributors: Both authors researched and wrote the paper. AMcI is guarantor.

  • Funding: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

  • Competing interests: None declared.

  • Ethical approval: Not required.

  • Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

  • Accepted 6 November 2008

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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