so we're talking about the
patellofemoral joint the kneecap joint
between the kneecap itself and this
little groove that it rides in at the
end of the thighbone this is a joint
that can give people a lot of problems
and there's a lot of ailments that can
affect this joint the thing to
understand about this is this is a very
high-stress joint the cartilage coating
in this joint is some of the thickest
cartilage of any joint in the body and
the reason for that is is that this
joint has some of the highest stress on
it of every joint any joint in the body
the quadriceps muscles the muscles in
the front of the thigh attached to your
quadriceps tendon that goes through your
patella or your kneecap and then
attaches down on to the shin bone down
in through here those are very strong
powerful muscles that exert a lot of
force on this area one thing that can
happen is those muscles can get very
tight over time and what that does is it
puts tension in the tendons making them
more irritable but also creates a
situation where you're essentially
taking the patellofemoral joint and
tightening it the kneecap gets bound
down in that groove and that can cause a
lot of pain some of what we're trying to
accomplish with therapy is to help
loosen that up both the muscle
attachments loosen up the muscle that
reduces tension on the tendons and then
also loosen up the ligamentous
attachments around the kneecap that can
get bound down as well a second thing
that can occur is that people can
actually have looseness around the
patella the ligaments that stabilize it
can be somewhat loose and lacks
particularly if someone's has
generalized loose-jointed Ness and this
can cause extra motion in that kneecap
joint that can also cause irritation the
goal of the strengthening exercises is
to help strengthen them and stabilize
this kneecap somewhat and help some of
the irritation that comes from that
extra motion go away