3 things you can do NOW for patello femoral pain...

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Recalcitrant PFP? In addition to your treatment regiment AND getting to THE CAUSE of the patello femoral pain (often but not always gluteus medius function), have you tried?

  • forefoot-strike running

  • increasing step rate by 10% (ie cadence)

  • "running softer"

according to this article:

"all modifications were associated with reduced patellofemoral joint force during running, compared with the participants’ normal running gait. But the modifications were also associated with immediate symptom improvement of at least one point out of 10; 62.5% of runners in the study experienced a positive symptomatic response to at least one of the gait modifications."

 

Easy to do, easy to implement

 

Esculier J-F, Bouyer LJ, Roy J-S. Immediate effects of gait retraining on symptoms and running mechanics of runners with patellofemoral pain. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther 2017;47(suppl 1):A9.

 

Foot orthoses and patellofemoral pain: frontal plane effects during running | Lower Extremity Review Magazine→

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We all see people with patellofemoral pain. Some of those cases may have responded to orthotic therapy. Some studies show that the effects on frontal plane kinematics are minimal (1 degree); this doesn’t mean it didn’t work, or this amount is not clinically significant. So why do they help? Perhaps it is a “timing” issue and the knee abduction moment.

“Our results are consistent with a 2003 study by Mundermann et al that compared the effects of custom orthoses (with posting, molding, or a combination of both) to flat inserts. For each orthotic condition, these authors reported a significant delay in the timing of the peak knee abduction moment. This finding may be related to the aforementioned clinical effects, as delaying the peak knee abduction moment would effectively decrease the rate of loading at the knee joint. The rate of loading has been previously implicated as a possible contributing factor in running-related overuse injuries, as runners with a history of injury have demonstrated a higher rate of loading of the vertical ground reaction force than runners with no history of running-related injury.”

This is an interesting take. If you have a few moments, give it a read: