Welcome to the group, glad you found us! Advice: read the stickies, and focus on form, form, form! No exercise should hurt. If you have pain, stop- something is wrong. There is a difference between real pain and "oh *kitten* my muscles are screaming!" You'll know the difference.

I had a back injury 2 years ago that had me in PT for 4 months. It went out again in April and I was couch bound with Vicodin for a week. Strengthening my back to prevent further injury is my #1 priority(looking good nekkid and weightloss are important too, hehe-but not #1.) You can lift safely with an injury, just make sure you listen to your body, and make proper form your goal! Talk with your doctor too! Squats might be too hard on a bad knee...can you do body weight squats?

Good luck!

I started Keto about 3 weeks ago and just started the 5x5 program. I, too, have a bad knee. I have done squats many times before and the only time that my knee ever hurt was when I was doing a traditional squat in the smith machine. I was at Planet Fitness so that's all they had to do squats in. Thankfully, my husband invested in an at home squat rack so I can do the workouts with the intended equipment. My advice is to make sure you are utilizing your leg and glute muscles during the squat and make sure to keep your knees out (not coming together when you are coming up). Otherwise, if you make you knees do all the work and they start going in, you're going to have a ton of pain from improper form.