I like the popliteus, keeping it in consideration with lower extremity pain, especially posteriolateral and lateral knee pain, is crucial for effective treatment.
Here are two links with some good info, one from kinetic control and another from jospt, full text you ask? hells yeah they are
http://www.kineticcontrol.com/Documents/LitReview_Popliteus_.pdf
http://www.jospt.org/doi/pdf/10.2519/jospt.2005.35.3.165
I take particular interest in musculotendinous structures which tie into joints more than others, this would include the iliocapsularis and rectus femoris into the hip. One of the key visualizations in the jospt paper is the possible connection of the popliteus into the lateral meniscus, not on a large percentage, but more than zero, which is relevant when dealing with an outlier knee pain presentation.
From a kinetic chain perspective, in open chain it functions as a tibial internal rotator, which means with a fixed leg in closed chain it will function as a femoral external rotator. This opens the possibility for overload of the popliteus in weightbearing to control rotation of the lower extremity, when other external rotators such as the hip(too much to list) and foot arch complex, requiring assessment of the whole limb to sniff out an overload mechanism when those areas are dysfunctional but nonpainful, the coveted DNP of big picture treatment planning.
Topic for another post, but the PFL, or popliteofibular ligament is also intriguing, the fibula is more active than would be assumed and its link to ankle rocker at the other side of the tibia is a whole discussion in itself, we’ll save that for another day
We’ll post some taping and other vids in the future stay tuned
Pete
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