I'm not going to take the bait on the "squatting is bad for your knees" claim. There's plenty of literature and information out there that debunks this claim; m

I'm not going to take the bait on the "squatting is bad for your knees" claim. There's plenty of literature and information out there that debunks this claim; maybe someone else wants to explain. . . And sure, if you want to play sports on the weekend that's great. See how you feel. If it starts to affect your weight training, then you will have to evaluate it. If you don't care how fast you will make progress in your lifts, and you'd like to play some sports, there's obviously nothing wrong with that. Just understand that a program like Bill Starr's 5x5 is really a program for intermediate lifters, perhaps not intended for people who want to do other activities as well.