I don’t believe, I personally know of one fly fisher that isn’t banged up from sports injuries of old, on the water injuries and life eventually wearing down their body. As a person who has had numerous sports, work and recreational injuries and surgeries, I appreciate the impact it all has on the sport. My fly tying and fly fishing have been altered by shoulder surgeries, a permanently fused right wrist with a bar inserted with screws, diminished feelings in my finger tips, severe arthritis in the spine and all this creating gradual loss of strength over the years. This, in turn, causes further loss of strength and as Tracey Stroup remarks below, these imbalances set you up for more tweaks and twangs….eek!

“…muscular imbalances constitute 85% of the ‘over use’ injuries I see.  A muscular imbalance in the human body, simply stated, means one muscle is stronger than the antagonistic muscle.  For every muscle in the human body that performs one action there is and equal and opposite (or should be) force applied by an antagonistic muscle.  This equal ‘pull’ is what keeps joints stable; secure and in place.  Some examples would be bicep vs tricep; quadriceps vs hamstrings.  The problem arises when you have one antagonist ’stronger’ or pulling a joint from one side than it’s opposite counterpart.  The result is a joint that gets ‘pulled’ out of it’s natural position.  This displacement of the joint causes a battery of different breakdowns to occur.” Common Fly Fishing Injuries