Knee tightness at bottom of squat

[peanuts-nuts]

Quick background, a few weeks ago I was rushing down 12 flights of stairs in my condo - fire alarm - and when I was near the bottom I felt a sharp-ish pain in my left knee, but sort of kept going, just slower. Didn't feel much after that till I squatted about a week later. The squats themselves were fine, but when I was doing single leg press, my left knee started hurting again so I stopped 1 set early. Moved over to leg extensions, and felt it again in my left knee so stopped 1 set early.

In the 1 week between then and now, I've been icing my knee multiple times daily, foam rolling my IT bands, and generally resting it and not putting too much pressure on it. I also supplement consistently with Omega 3 and have been doing so for many years. For the most part, around 90-95% of the time, I don't feel much, but that 5-10% of the time, it just sort of feels like a pressure/tightness on it, not so much pain.

I squatted today as heavy as usual, wearing sleeves, and the best I can describe what I feel is at the bottom of the squat, I feel like it's stretching/tightness, not really pain, hard to explain, but it's more like a tight stretchy feeling. Kept my sleeves on for about 1 hour after that and now at home it's much better. I also get a similar feeling when I fully extend the knee.

In short, bending it and squatting down (body weight squat) doesn't actually hurt, it just doesn't feel like my right knee which is normal - this is sort of a very slightly restrictive stretchy feeling. Felt it most when I had weight on the bar, and I squat below parallel.

Based on this description, anyone had anything similar, or have any idea what it could be?

[Tiburon]

How old are you? Eventually, this is how your entire body will feel.

If this shit were easy, everyone would be yoked.

[peanuts-nuts]

How old are you? Eventually, this is how your entire body will feel.

If this shit were easy, everyone would be yoked.

I'm 31. I guess I'm at that age where this sort of thing is bound to start happening.

I went to a physio the other day and he checked my knee, and said it's basically softening of the cartilage under the knee cap. Quick google search and this I believe is chondromalacia patellae.

He mentioned it wasn't serious and said mine is quite minor. He gave me some stretches to do, and said I need to strengthen my quads, hams, and roll out my IT bands, all of which I've been doing. I also got a heating pad today and will start using that on and around the knee cap.

My concern is that I don't want this to limit my squatting. To be quite honest I feel much better in my knees after squatting - yes there's some minor pain/tightness during the squat, more so at the bottom, but when I'm done, I feel much better in that area.

Would you folks say this is common, can it get better or even completely heal, and would low-bar full squats work to strengthen the knee?

[Tiburon]

chondromalacia patellae.

Isn't that a chronic condition? Sounds like your injury was acute

[A Large Hand]

I had something similar. Knee felt fine unless I went into full squat--like a baseball catcher. Then would get very sharp pain on the inside of my knee.

My problem was tight hamstrings. The hamstring was pulling on a bursa sack in the front of the inside of my knee (sorry for lack of anatomical terms). I believe it was specifically this: Pes Anserine (Knee Tendon) Bursitis - OrthoInfo - AAOS

Anyways, that was my problem. Not sure if it is exactly like yours. It has been a few years, but if I recall correctly, I believe it got better with lots of hamstring stretches and improving my squat form (which sucked!!).