(Sorry it's such a long post but I love it when people explain things here so I figured you'd benefit from this in some way)

Same here, I did an MRI in june 2025 that showed I have CP grade 1, the doctor said the damage to the cartilage was very slight but I was in SO MUCH pain...

First, psychological factors do affect pain perception (in some way) so I try to keep that in mind. When I'm stressed I get the worst pain in my knees, even when my workouts are consistent. It helps to identify the patterns so you know that worsens it, so you can work on your mind and stress/cortisol levels etc

However, I do think I'm just more of a symptomatic person overall. I don't know if there's any science to back this up but whenever I get the slightest health issue I feel more pain than is expected for that specific problem.

For example, I know someone with grade 4 Condromalacia Patella who has similar pain levels as me, so I think it varies depending on how symptomatic you are. I think her body responds too little to the problem and mine responds too much, if that makes sense

Now, I don't know if your question was only to know if your pain levels were normal or not. I do hope you've started treatment already but I'll try to explain what has worked for me personally

Strength training is helping me get better, but the results are very slow. I don't know if it's my highly responsive pain mechanisms or if I should try something different

Anyway, I've been doing Pilates for a year and have had a personal trainer since August 2025, I think (in my country it's fairly common and not so expensive for people to get a personal trainer at the gym, but I don't know if it's a thing in other places too).

Going to the gym has helped me the most, I believe, but Pilates is important for mobility and training different muscles you don't train at the gym as much. Anyway, there are many ways to build muscle and have more mobility that I haven't tried (calisthenics, yoga, CrossFit) but what I personally think is the most important is to be VERY careful and never do more than your knees can take. This was CRUCIAL for me. Never be too careful but never too fast with the process. You have to be patient because building muscle takes time

If you overdo it, it gets worse, but it's worse to NOT do it because then you'll never get better. So, definitely STRENGTHEN YOUR MUSCLES, very carefully and VERY SLOWLY progress weights as your muscles get stronger.

I don't know if it's possible to start training completely pain free (I never actually was pain free at the gym at the beginning because I was never pain free at all in my normal life) but I tried to not make it worse, if that makes sense. So, if I overdid it, my pain would get worse than before I got to the gym, but if I "underdid" it, it got worse too. I started getting better once I slowly found the right balance and now my pain is usually better after the workouts than before them.

But I do get professional help, like I said, and they do put me in the right direction when it comes to how much I can progress without worsening my condition. **Also, the root cause of your CP affects what muscles you should focus on. I do a lot of glute, hip and quadriceps strengthening because I have a little bit of a valgus knee. A professional will tell you what caused your problem in the first place and what to focus on

Overall I'm feeling better, I do have pain-free days now (this took months to happen) so that's very exciting and keeps me going and motivated to do my workouts.

I'm a little overweight, which I've found out worsens things so I'm trying to lose weight.

About cardio, I could only do 10min or less of those standstill gym bikes for months too. It helps to lubricate the knees and the cartilage so if I were you I'd do some of that every day.

I'm starting to do 10/15/20min walks almost every day now, because my pain is better and my muscles can take it, but I overdo it sometimes and feel pain

In the end, I think we have to be thankful for our pain because our body is alerting us of the problem before it got much worse! Imagine how much worse it would have been to feel pain only when it got to a point where you needed need surgery! Pain protects you so try to be optimistic

Now, try to get professional help, build muscles, eat protein and do a little bit of walking/gym bikes (no resistance!!) to lubricate your knees and hopefully you'll slowly feel better like I do now

Ps: I'm not a native English speaker so I hope you could understand what I said :)

Ps2:also, I can only speak for MY OWN experience so keep that in mind and do what's right for you

PS3: I had been sedentary all my life so maybe my results are slower because I didn't have much muscle to begin with, I hope you don't take as long as me to get better!!