Article: Why some athletes are injury-prone| New Scientist

Some sportspeople are more prone to injury than others, despite being fully fit. A new mathematical model of the body shows that these athletes rely on a fixed combination of movements that they cannot easily modify. The discovery might help in spotting injury-prone athletes early on...

Using projective geometry, Penne and Laurie modelled the actions of cricket bowlers, who are notorious for their frequent injuries. After making some assumptions about a bowler's action - for instance, they ignored any rotations of the wrist and elbow - the researchers modelled all the ways in which joint movements could be combined to deliver a cricket ball.

They found that most combinations allowed the bowler to make small adjustments to the action, but that a few combinations gave no room for manoeuvre. The researchers call this phenomenon 'reduced redundancy' and say that it may play a special role in sports injuries."

Zaheer Khan's injury is explained!