Stretch your quads and calves

I recently came across an interesting prospective study regarding patello-femoral pain. While most studies are retrospective in nature (e.g. they examine an issue aftertheres a problem) very few look at it in the opposite fashion. This prospective study (3) examined 282 athletes enrolled in phys ed classes and took them through a battery of tests to determine baseline statistics. Two years later they followed up, and 24 of the 282 had developed patellofemoral pain. After running statistical analyses on these subjects, researchers determined that athletes who had developed PF pain had significantly tighter quadriceps and gastrocnemi than their healthy counterparts. So whats the moral of this story? Stretch your quads and calves. As well, its interesting to note that the gastrocnemius can wreak havoc on both sides of the joint. The gastrocnemius is the calf muscle that crosses your knee joint, and can therefore contribute to posterior knee pain as well. All the more reason to stretch those puppies out if you ask me.