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When I was in my 30's I wanted to lift the heaviest weight I could ever lift.

It was what I call the powerlifting phase of my life.

In the fitness arena, we have arbitrary standards of:

1) Squatting 1.5x your bodyweight

And...

2) Deadlifting 2x your bodyweight

The cool thing is I've been able to achieve both of those. Yet, I've stopped doing both of these exercises for a couple of reasons.

The first reason is I have different goals.

I'm trying to become athletic from an all-around perspective. This means a holistic focus on strength, cardio, and mobility.

I want to use my body to lift, surf, box, run, hike, or swim whenever I so, please.

Both of those exercises are taxing on my nervous system and it takes some time to recover from them.

The second is risk and reward.

I'm 42 turning 43 years old & my goals in the gym have changed.

The risk of living up to these arbitrary numbers is not worth the reward my ego would feel as a result of hitting them.

As I age I want an asymmetrical reward for the work I'm doing. This means I want exercises that help me develop strength while avoiding injury.

Squatting and deadlifting at a heavy weight increases the risk because the load is placed squarely on your back.

The movements are important but the exercises can be replaced with lower-risk options.

So instead of squatting and deadlifting, I'm doing these instead...

1. Bulgarian Split Squats

This move strengthens the muscles of the legs, including the quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves.

It's also a single-leg exercise so it develops more balance & forces your core to work to maintain stability.

2. Hip thrusts

These build strength in your glutes & posterior without putting stress on your back.

You can check out both the Bulgarian split squat and the hip thrust movements in this video here.

The key with both of these exercises is to use controlled form and to ease up on adding too much weight (at least in the beginning).

When you see these exercises you see that the load is placed in ways that take most of the work out of your lower back.

They are what I consider low risk & high reward exercises. They also work the exact same muscles as the squat & deadlift.

If you find yourself in my position where you want the benefits of building muscle and getting stronger without risk of injury try these out.

Make sure you use good form, control the tempo, and take your time with them.

Remember that there are no such things as mandatory exercises.

There are mandatory movements but the exercises you choose should fit your goals and how you want to live life.

Hope this helped.

- Dan

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