Right knee pain

Pain & Rehab Forum [Moderated]
1

I recently started experiencing right knee pain right as I hit depth on squat with a certain load. I never had knee pain before but some background on the lead up to the pain:

  1. Currently running PLII with minimal substitutions S/T/W/F during the 2nd time.
  2. During the first time through, I had no issues generally. however, on the day 2 squat variation, I substituted squats for split squats up only until the last few weeks (e.g., was the first time i began squatting 3x a week)
  3. On week 1/day 2, I substituted HBBS on day 2 since i wanted more practice on them. I started very light and did not do back off sets to ease my body into it (so i thought)
  4. On week 4/day 2, I noticed some knee discomfort in the right knee on the last few reps on the Day 2 HBBS. On Day 3, instead of Overload squat I did pin squats and had no issues and no reductions in loads.
  5. On week 5/day 1 comp LBBS felt normal; no discomfort. The day 2 HBBS also had no problems
  6. On week 5/day 3, I was warming up like usual for 2ct pause squats and then at 185 all of a sudden a sharp pain in my knee when hitting depth. I can’t even go back to the bar without it hurting. I substitute leg press and leg extension
  7. On week 6/Day 1, warming up for comp squat and all was fine until 185 and then the pain is back, and I can’t drop to the bar either without pain. Again I substitute leg press and extensions. On day 2, i forego squats and do light split squats with 25lb db (no issues)

Today (week 6/Day 3), I felt it immediately on warm up with just the bar that knee discomfort, no matter highbar or lowbar. As a last ditch effort, I tried tempo squats and…for some reason that seemed to not aggregate anything. I kept it light and just did 135/155lb on the bar, but the 3-0-3 movement pattern did feel awkward since it was my first time

Understanding the BBM literature, I don’t think anything is seriously wrong (no issues with deadlift or split squats) and that I’ll just need to take weight off the bar to get my knee accustomed to load again gradually. My goal is to just keep Tempo squats as the only variation for now (provided no pain) and gradually reintroduce normal squats on day 1. Is that a reasonable approach?

Also: does the fact that tempo squats being less aggregating with weight (versus non-tempo without weight) indicate another underlying issue such as inefficient form? Perhaps another reason may have been II was shifting more weight to my heels probably to avoid the pain. Currently squatting in adipower 3s with a 1" heel I think.

Any insight is greatly appreciated - thanks!