Runner's Knee (Patellofemoral Pain)

"Runner's knee" is the everyday name for patellofemoral pain syndrome: pain from the joint where your kneecap glides over the end of your thigh bone. In most cases it isn't a torn structure or worn-out cartilage — it's a joint being loaded more than it can currently tolerate, and letting you know.

That distinction matters. If nothing is damaged, rest alone rarely fixes it. You feel better, go back to the same running, and it comes back. The fix is changing how the knee is loaded and building the capacity to handle it.

Runners building mileage, adding hills or speed work, or returning after a break are the classic cases. So are people who've recently started running, lifters who added running to their training, and anyone whose glutes and hips aren't pulling their share — which shifts more load onto the kneecap with every stride. In Los Angeles that often looks like the runner who jumped from flat beach-path miles to Griffith Park hills, or ramped for a race faster than their body was ready for.

The exam starts at the knee and quickly moves away from it. I look at the kneecap and the tissues around it, but the answers usually live at the hip and ankle — hip strength and control, how your foot and calf absorb load, and how your whole stride is organized.

Then we look at how you run. Not to chase a perfect form, but to see where load is concentrating and whether small changes — cadence, stride length, how you handle hills — take pressure off the front of the knee. Combined with your training history, that gives us the driver rather than just the sore spot.

Early on, the priority is calming the joint down without shutting your running off entirely. Hands-on work eases the tissues pulling on the kneecap, and we adjust your running week — volume, hills, intensity — so you're training in the range your knee can handle right now.

From there it's progressive loading: hip and glute strength, quad capacity, calf and foot work, then a graded return to the mileage and terrain you want. Each step has a clear milestone, so you're never guessing whether you're ready for the next one.

Runner's knee is often handed a sheet of clamshells and a "rest and see." Here, every session is a full hour, 1-on-1 with me — no aides, no rotating between clients. That time is how the assessment stays thorough, the plan stays specific to your running, and adjustments happen in real time as your knee responds. Between sessions you have direct messaging access, so a question about a flare-up doesn't wait two weeks.

Come in something you can move in. We'll talk through your history and your running — recent mileage, what changed, what you're training for — then do a full assessment, including a look at how you move and run. You'll leave the first visit knowing what's likely driving the pain, what to change this week, and roughly how the plan unfolds from here.