Sometimes pain starts without a particular injury.

You might first notice it swimming, walking or running, at the gym, at work, or doing something you’ve done plenty of times before. At first it might only bother you occasionally, but then you start noticing it more often — or it begins getting in the way of things you normally do.

There may not have been a twist, fall, pull or other obvious moment when something went wrong.

It just seems to have crept up on you.

Sometimes there is an obvious clue.

You’ve started swimming more often, increased your walking or running, changed something at the gym, spent longer at the computer, or had a particularly busy period at work.

But sometimes there hasn’t been a big change at all. You’ve been doing much the same things you normally do — they’ve just started bothering you.

So yes, what you’ve been doing may be part of the story. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve simply “done too much” or damaged something.