This made me laugh because my knees also hurt from squatting. I've been focusing on Romanian deadlifts for two months because of the pain, but I also do one-legged bench bridges, one-legged Romanian deadlifts (this is really, really hard for me) and I do clamshells with a resistance band to strengthen my hips. My knees have hurt too much since early August for me to do any step-ups onto a bench...even going up stairs was pretty excruciating. Recently I started eating 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric every night (doctor's advice) and that has helped a lot with the inflammation.

Thanks for posting this, because I'm reading everyone's solutions with great interest.