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Muscle imbalance

A muscle imbalance means that one muscle in an antagonist pair is stronger than the other. This is often seen in footballers who have stronger quadriceps muscles from extending the knee to kick the ball, but their hamstring muscles are not as strong.

This can result in knee injuries because the hamstring muscles are not able to stabilise the knee joint as effectively during the kicking action of the knee. As a result, when a striker goes to score a goal, they can over-kick so that their knee hyperextends and injury occurs.