An Updated Model Does Not Reveal Sex Differences in Patellofemoral Joint Stress during Running.
Laura Jacobson, C Nathan Vannatta, Catherine Schuman and 1 others
PMID 36518831WHAT IT FOUND
Healthy female runners did not have higher patellofemoral joint stress than males when running at a fixed speed, even when the model accounted for sex-specific contact areas and quadriceps muscle force.
Key findings
01Peak patellofemoral joint stress did not differ between sexes during running.
02Females demonstrated less knee extensor moment but greater hip adduction and internal rotation than males.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The musculoskeletal model was two-dimensional and constrained the knee to a single degree of freedom, meaning it could not capture the influence of frontal and transverse plane hip motions on joint stress. Running speed was restricted to a narrow range (3.52-3.89 m/s) to ensure comparability, so results may not reflect loading at the varied speeds used in typical training. Only healthy rearfoot strikers were studied; findings may not apply to injured runners or those with forefoot or midfoot strike patterns. Musculoskeletal models rely on anatomical assumptions that may not perfectly match individual participants' anatomy, introducing inherent error in force estimates.
Declared interests
The authors declared no financial conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that hip adduction and internal rotation differences cause higher patellofemoral stress in females. The study found these hip motion differences but explicitly reported no difference in joint stress, and the 2D model used could not test the link between the hip motions and the stress outcome.