Maladaptive hip mechanics before puberty may contribute to patellofemoral pain in young female athletes, while aberrant knee mechanics may contribute to patellofemoral pain development throughout the maturational process, according to published results.

Gregory D. Myer, PhD, FACSM, CSCS*D, and colleagues had 506 high school female athletes who completed the anterior knee pain scale and a knee examination for the diagnosis of patellofemoral pain perform a drop vertical jump task instrumented with force plates at sport-specific preseason appointments during the course of 2 years. Researchers also documented pubertal status, landing profile and patellofemoral pain development. Participants were classified into high- or low-risk knee and hip landing profiles for the development of patellofemoral pain using biomechanical measures generated from standard 3-D biomechanical analyses. Researchers used sagittal-plane knee range of motion, peak knee abduction angle, peak knee abduction moment and peak-to-peak transverse-plane knee moment in the knee landing profile, and sagittal-plane hip range of motion, peak hip extensor moment, peak abductor moment and peak hip rotator moment in the hip landing profile.