[UConnJulie]

If you can lie prone and keep your knees together and get your heel to your butt and not feel much stretch in the quad, then your flexibility is fine. If you compensate by abducting your thigh or rotating your hip, then it's not, even if you can get your heel to your butt. If you can't get your heel to your butt ... not good.

The best way I've found to stretch TFL ... first foam roll it, a lot ... then do a sidelying quad stretch and use your bottom leg to pull your top leg down by putting the foot of the bottom leg on top of the top knee.

Keep working on that hip flexibility (including adductors, hip flexors, TFL, glutes and other rotators) and then the gluteal activation will get easier ... which in turn should help the patellofemoral issues.