Was in for 6 years- now my knees sound like a bowl of rice crispy drenched in milk. Knee sleeves have worked for me. Also concentrating/working on form. I try to do ankle mobility exercises as this is a significant hindrance to my squat.

I've been using knee sleeves for a few years now and they work great! Keeps everything in nice and tight. Try warming up with several sets of leg presses before hitting squats.

I try to pre-exhaust my quads and do squats last in my leg workout so I don’t have to use as much weight. One good way to pre-exhaust is to do sissy squats before squats.

Wrapping your knees is not an answer to knee pain. Wraps are made to provide you the ability to lift more weight by giving you a bounce out of the hole.Knee sleeves can help some by warming the tendons and giving a little bit of stability. 90% of knee pain is not knee related but caused by issues with you ankle mobility or issues within your hips.

Poor ankle mobility can cause you to lean forward due to lack of flexibility in your ankle thus causing you to be off balance and putting too much weight on your knees and at an unsafe angle. Additionally poor hip mobility can cause tightness in your IT band which can pull on your knee, causing pain in your knees. These are just two examples, there are many. I recommend you get an assessment of your mobility by a sports PT that understands the body mechanics of a weightlifter, especially when it comes to the big three lifts. You will find that most general PTs are worthless as they only know how to treat symptoms and not diagnose the cause.

I thought I could not squat anymore after my third knee surgery. Until my last knee surgeon told me to squat. He told me that the only squat that is bad for your knees is one with bad form. I have no meniscus in my right knee and have had ACL done on both knees. Since then I have done a lot of research on form and mobility to maximize my squat. I have now been squatting again for 7 years. I have reached a 570 lbs squat at 47 yo and 185lbs.

So you may fell great with the wraps right now but they may just be masking your issues. I would not say don't use them but you need to find out what is causing you to need them and address that issue.

This post has given me hope. I'm in a similar situation worked for 4 years in job that involved approximately 15 miles of walking daily as well as sometimes carrying weights. I had to also give up on squats since my knees would feel like they were going to pop out. Driving a manual car more than 20 minutes became a pain.

I left the job 3 months ago but will be trying wraps also building home gym once prices for equipment goes back down.

I think the danger people are referring to is In using knee wraps to lift more than you normally could without them. Like the very tight 2 ply or 3 ply mentioned below that can give a rebound effect. If you’re using them with your normal working weights with regular knee wraps Just for stability I don’t see much if any risk.

There are different types of knee sleeves. Most common are the ones mentioned that are made of neoprene.
They also have double and triple ply knee sleeves. Which are made of a stronger material, add more support, and a little rebound depending on how tight they are. Triple ply or a tight double ply usually have to be pulled down in between sets to let the blood flow.
I would suggest spraying something such as Icy Hot on your knees before putting the sleeves on. With the sleeves on you pores open up from sweat and the Icy Hot really warms the knees up.

You can still use wraps but I would save them for your heaviest sets or if your knee is hurting bad.

NPP can also help. And you may want to try and run BPC-157 in both knees for anywhere between 10 to 30 days.

Mobility work and foam rolling as well.

I'd say whatever works well for you and keeps you from pain - which can only be a good thing just keep doing that. I managed about a year of heavy squatting before I started getting painful knees and hams. First time I used wraps it was an absolute life saver so I just continued to use them after that. I'm not a huge fan of squats as they destroy my bench and deads rather than benefit them, having to re tighten the wraps before each big set was a bit of a bind also. Try some good knee sleeves like D suggests.

Get a good pair of knee sleeves. Mark bell’s STrong knee sleeves are the shit. I throw them on after warmups every session. They were a game changer for me. SBD knee sleeves are just as good too.

They provide the support of a light wrap without the negatives of a wrap, plus all of the benefits of a knee sleeve.

I’m Not trying to sound like a commercial, but I’m a 5’9 powerlifter too and my right knee has been shitty since High school when I played baseball. (I know it isn’t the same as jumping outta plains but a shitty knee is a shitty knee). They help a lot.