Important: please read the medical dislaimer before continuing

Ultimately all injuries are caused by the body receiving forces that it cannot deal with.  The time frame within which these forces do damage leads to two classifications of injury:

• Instantaneous - forces causing injury are exerted over a time measured in milli seconds (ms).  During an instantaneous injury there is a large gap between what the body can accommodate without injury and the forces that it is subjected to.  The severity of injury is determined by the size of the gap.
• Slow developing - the time frame is measured in seconds to hours.  During slow developing injuries there is a small gap between what the body can accommodate and what the body is subjected to.  This gap has to be large enough to cause microscopic damage at a rate that is bigger than the body can repair.  Over time damage accumulates so the severity of injury is determined by the gap (rate of injury) and duration.  Often the duration is the distinguishing feature.  These injuries are often referred to as 'over use' injuries.

Causes:

• Technical - the player makes a technical mistake in a movement they attempt.  The error results in a biomechanically unfavourable situation which applies forces in such a way as to cause an injury
• Functional - the body is unable to perform the task that the motor programme is instructing it to do.  For example, this could be because of a pre-existing injury that has not recovered fully, a long period of inactivity leading to an atrophied muscle, or poor pre-event conditioning
• Fatigue - this can be a cause of both technical errors and reductions of function, ultimately causing injury.
• Environmental - the body has to interact with the environment and injuries can be caused because of unfavourable conditions such as obstructions or a slippery floor
• Opponent - direct physical contact with an opponent in contact sports or with the projectile that an opponent has just hit can cause injury.