Have you ever tried knee wraps to see if they’d help?
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Knees:
My knees are made of glass. I look at other people’s knees and I see how wide the joint is; oftentimes wider than their calves.
Mine? They’re the skinniest part of my leg except for my ankle.
I started wearing Rehband knee sleeves (size small) a few years ago. I’m still using the same pair. They make all the difference. I think they perform the function that additional flesh around a knee joint would perform - just keeping it all together. Or maybe it’s just psychological.
Either way, I recommend them.
Crossbows:
Have you seen “The book of the crossbow”? It’s a European work, but has a chapter on Asian bows I think. Lots of cool history and drawings.
My kids were interested in the concept so we bought the book, looked at how crossbows work, and then built a crossbow out of readily available materials:
-I ripped several slats off a 2x4, each slat about 0.1" thick and 1.5" wide, about 3 or 4 feet long.
-Cut each slat a few inches shorter than the next.
-Stacked the slats and glued them together only in the middle, so they could slide against each other closer to the ends. This is the “bow”
-Mounted that onto a stock built from a 2x4.
-Created a groove for the bolt and a triggering mechanism.
-Had a blast shooting bolts with way too much energy. Fired a dry-erase marker once and watched it shatter against the wall 
Then we built a mini-trebuchet.
Those were good times!
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I haven’t tried knee wraps, but I did try some other knee support and a couple months with a PT, working specifically on my knees.
I have some lateral sliding of tendons when I get to about 90°, and neither my massage therapist nor PT could really figure it out. When loaded, it can snap and be really painful. The PT was genuinely a bit grossed out when she felt it, lol. I think it’s actually due to a tight muscle (gracilis) that I don’t stretch enough.
But the other answer is I haven’t really focused/cared about squats for a long time.
Feel free to call me out on this, but unlike some other movements, I’ve never found squats particularly transferrable to anything else I do in real life. I know that’s kind of a BS answer.
Like a full rom squat is a common movement in my real life, mostly due to kids, but not with much load. At the heaviest, nothing more than the weight of a kid on my shoulders and their stuff, usually because they dropped yet another thing…
I do think the torso stability and control that comes with squats is important though, and squats are one of the best ways to train it. But so is the crazy hanging weighted ab stuff + jefferson curls and deadlifts.
I dunno. Maybe I’ll squat again someday.
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Ah, so you were actually excited about the crossbow mention earlier. (I wasn’t sure if it was a general happy about continued random interests, or about crossbows specifically)
I barely know anything and can still nerd out on that tiny bit.
It actually all started with sword stuff. The first documented swordfighter was a woman, The Maiden of Yue. There was a king that was searching among his people for the most skilled fighters to train his army. She was a civilian and was brought in to train them in swordplay. Bunch of legendary bits of her story.
However immediately after, in that same book, that king also hired the best archer. He does a whole spiel about how archery was handed down from these god figures, but then goes on talking about how for an army, it was better to turn the bow sideways, hook on a stock, and make it into crossbows.
Then, I ran across those arsenal record circa 100 AD and how they had so many crossbows.
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So I looked into that further and learned about their mass manufactured trigger mechanisms. Fascinating bit of machinery.
And, of course, got a modern reproduction of one.
There were a lot of those found, and many stocks, but not many bows. They had a modular design where the bow was detachable, and you could use basically any bow with it.
But the specs were recorded as far as capabilities.
Which is incredible.
Then I found a Ming dynasty manual, much much later, 1500s, that has instructions for building a much less powerful crossbow, but is a more “accessible” design. It is pretty similar to what you described, as a loose laminate of multiple (bamboo) boards connected at the center. It doesn’t require highly skilled bowyers using horn and sinew.
I found a forum called The Arbalist Guild where a few people experimented with the idea with some fiberglass bars. So I’ve thought about doing the same. I have the material now.
I did mock it up with the actual bow though, but a very short draw.
I also did a trebuchet thing once, too. Also fun. Another time.
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I forgot this part. Not sure if it’s that one but I do have a couple crossbow books queued up to read.
Hm. Maybe not that one.
And now I’m not sure. Same author, but not sure if that’s a different book or just an alternate title.
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Between holidays, school and work starting back up, and general flux in routines, I just now made it back on here.
There was a lull in training for a bit, but that let some elbow and knee stuff heal up.
Chinups I made it up to 8, but that was a couple weeks ago. 7 is a struggle but doable.
Will be resuming the routine today/tomorrow.
Anyway, I’m alive.
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