Sporting injuries may be generally divided into those caused by an impact, where there is a sudden increase in the force applied to the body (an inappropriate landing in Australian football or rugby) or those produced through overuse. Overuse injuries are generally due to overload or repetitive microtrauma of the musculoskeletal system, where a number of repetitive forces each lower than the critical limit of selected tissues produce a combined fatigue effect in that tissue over a period.
Contributing factors to overuse injuries include: 'poor technique', an excessive number of attempts at an activity, inappropriate conditioning and/or poor body anthropometry or congenital factors that may predispose a person to injury in a particular sport or activity. This paper discusses how a biomechanical understanding of at least some of the causes of the 'overuse injury' will help reduce the incidence of such injuries in sport or activity. Those interested in overuse injuries should also read Nigg (1985), Renström and Johnson (1985) and Dalton (1992)
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