"You can chat with a PT for 50–80$ and they can tell you exactly what's wrong & how to fix it in less than an hour."
That's a complete lie. Most PTs don't know anything about anything and will try to milk you for "motivating" you in your workout and keeping a notebook for you on a regular basis. Usually for at least $300-500 a month, even at horrible gyms. By no means will they be able to tell you remotely, let alone, exactly "what's wrong".
"Personally, I just do weighted squats & heavy deadlift, but if your knees are bad, that's a bad idea."
Yea, and guess what? There is no easy solution for this, let alone one provided by a random PT. It's a cascading effect - you have one injury, you can't address the muscle imbalances causing it.
As far as posterior chain weakness, there is also the issue of lordosis, which results in horrible squat form. Deadlifts do help, but again, there is the risk of hyper-extension.
In short, solutions to this are far, far more complicated than your post implies.
Someone replied to you, already; I meant “physical therapist”, not “personal trainer”. I don’t have any experience with personal trainers. Sorry for the confusion.
As a note, at least in the UK, if someone talks about a Personal Trainer they'll say PT (although I rarely here that, most people just say personal trainer) but if you want to talk about a physiotherapist people will usual shorten it to 'physio'.
That's a complete lie. Most PTs don't know anything about anything and will try to milk you for "motivating" you in your workout and keeping a notebook for you on a regular basis. Usually for at least $300-500 a month, even at horrible gyms. By no means will they be able to tell you remotely, let alone, exactly "what's wrong".
"Personally, I just do weighted squats & heavy deadlift, but if your knees are bad, that's a bad idea."
Yea, and guess what? There is no easy solution for this, let alone one provided by a random PT. It's a cascading effect - you have one injury, you can't address the muscle imbalances causing it.
As far as posterior chain weakness, there is also the issue of lordosis, which results in horrible squat form. Deadlifts do help, but again, there is the risk of hyper-extension.
In short, solutions to this are far, far more complicated than your post implies.