[thuccess129]

I played volleyball without knowing how to execute the pancake dive and smashed my knees on the floorboards repeatedly in my 10s. I became obsessed with MMA and eventually got a bucket handle tear in my knee at athletic prime. Sometimes the knee refused to straighten and I had to get physio to hoik it back straight. Every step was a pain. Instead of surgery to staple the meniscus down or cut it out, what primitive medical procedure is that?!, I had acupuncture to treat the pain. I think I was lucky in not having the deeply inserted needle sever a controlling nerve from knee to toe. I wouldn't do that again in a do-over. I heard by word of mouth a statistic that 50% of knee surgery don't improve the knee so I didn't have that done. I swim to get exercise or walk gingerly.

[DennisP]

I don't know whether the "knees over toes guy" exercises would help your specific problem but that guy had multiple knee surgeries when he was young, and injuries to the other knee where he skipped recommended surgery, and now his knees are amazingly capable. Might be worth checking out. It starts very gently and you never work through pain. All the physical therapists I could find talking about it were very positive on the program, as long as you take it slow.