Given how easy persuasive is to level , it ' s quite ironic that the invisible sneaky person is being asked for so frequently while the legendary charisma is unwanted in a corner <| sep |> Some background on me I am a physical therapist , work an outpatient orthopedic clinic , and have been working ~ 2 years . Had you known the ACL was ruptured when it happened you would have been very likely to receive surgery if you are from the united states prevalence of surgery is based mostly on geography . You can 100 % not have issues with exercising when you have deficiencies with the ACL . Generally , around joint we have dynamic stabilizers muscles and static stabilizers ligaments . For the knee the ligaments are the ACL , PCL , MCL , and LCL . During volitional actions ones you plan to do the ligaments are not stressed too much as the muscles control the knee through the motion . However when we are forced to react to surprises , as often occurs in sports , it is more common that our muscle ' s response time to take up the load at the joint is too slow this is when the ligaments play a bigger role . It is the job of the ACL , primarily to resist anterior motion of the Tibia on the femur this motion , the tibia sliding forward on the femur occurs when we straighten our knee . Consequently tight hamstrings can actually help protect an injured ACL and ultimately the knee from hyper extension . As far as squatting goes the ACL does not undergo a lot of stress because the knee is going into flexion . The ACL is also stressed with rotation at the knee as occurs if you squat and the knees get closser togetther as you go down . You should avoid this posture during squats . As far as the advice you got , do the exercises unless they hurt , I would agree . Without seeing you squat I would recommend double leg squats . But if you have good control of the knee with pistol squats , by all means progress to them . You might also like doing single leg leg press . Additionally , you may benefit from watching yourself squat in the mirror and make sure you are loading each leg evenly by making sure you are not leaning to one side . I hope this was helpful . Let me know if I didn ' t answer anything sufficiently .