Stabbing Pain in Knee During Training

After warming up today (jumping rope, bench hops, mountain climbers, burpees(?)(I just call them up-downs if that tells you what they are)), I went to start doing front squats. About two reps into just squatting the bar to continue warming up, there started a sharp stabbing pain through the middle of my left knee cap. Immediately quit with the bar and tried to do some with just bodyweight and the pain continued. Stopped with any squatting motion and moved on in my workout.

Besides this pain today, below my kneecap had felt like it was swelled up yesterday morning, but it went away over the course of the day and during my workout yesterday (just upper body).

Additionally, I sit all day long in an office, and whenever I stand up to walk anywhere, that knee joint cracks within about 5 steps away from my desk (although both knees are starting to do this).

I know its a bit vague, but anyone know what this might be, or what to do about it?
I PVC roll the sides and back of my legs after almost every workout, as well as stretch out my calves (plus the upper body SMR stuff I do). I’ve never had any major injuries to this knee.

The only thing different than normal is that I’ve been taking a “Diesel Test” test booster at the low dose for about a week and a half (I’m 25). I don’t take any fish oil and used to take some glucosamine chondroitin (GC), but stopped when I ran out a while ago (the GC was for tearing the meniscus in the right knee).

I’m thinking tomorrow I’ll go get some fish oil and GC at my local Super Supplements and see if those help at all.

Anyone have any other suggestions?

(as far as major stats, I’m 5’6", 180, been training for a long time, and can normally front squat around 205 (only started front squatting recently))

Why do you warm up explosive plyos before doing front squats? Just curious.

I always had bad knees, so has my mom, dad and older brother, so i assume it is something genetic, maybe cause we are all pretty tall (6’3 for the guys, 5’8 for my mom) and of all the different pains i would get, i had one very similar to yours.

sometimes when i would break into a sprint without any kind of warmup, i would get a pain in my knee caps that felt like somebody stuck a chisel in the middle of it and split it in two, it was pretty much debilitating and i would have to stop and sit for minutes at a time for it to go away.

If you have had any prior knee problems, the thing that worked for me was taking glucosamine chondroitin every day for a few months, dont know how much this will help, but for me it completely took away all the pain in my knees and they have been 100% ever since i started taking it. My dad swears by it also, might wanna give it a try if youve had past problems or the problem continues.

The warmup I was talking about is at the end of that article: the Bench Jumps, the Hill Climbers (not mountain climbers like I called them), and Lie Down Stand Ups.