The squat is not the king
"King of all exercises" is a powerlifting import. For adults over 40 who aren't competing, it's bad advice that quietly builds the wrong body.
You’ll hear it in any gym: “the squat is the king of all exercises.” Someone tells a friend. Someone tells themselves before walking up to a heavy bar. The line came out of powerlifting and never got updated for anyone else.
In powerlifting, sure — squat is one of three lifts you’re scored on, and of the three it trains the most muscle through the longest range. King of that contest. Fine.
For a 45-year-old who’s not in a contest, the idea breeds the wrong instincts.
The wear bill is different. A heavy back squat sits a loaded bar on your spine and asks the meniscus, the hip labrum, and the lumbar discs to absorb it. A goblet squat, a front squat, or a Bulgarian split squat hits most of the same strength benefit with a fraction of the wear. Powerlifters pay that wear bill because the platform pays them back. You don’t get paid.
You stop training the rest. If the squat rack is where the “real work” happens, the rest gets short-changed — the hinge (your bend-over pattern), the lunge (one-leg stability), the carry (grip and posture under load), and rotation (your golf swing, reaching across the car for the toddler in the back). The patterns you skip are usually the ones that land you in physical therapy. Not the ones you grind weekly.
You learn to grind everything. The instinct that says “one lift matters most” is the same instinct that says “more weight, every session, on everything.” That’s how a 52-year-old throws his back out picking up a duffel bag at the airport. He spent ten years strong in one pattern and weak in six others, and one Tuesday morning the weak ones got tested.
Train the squat. Train the deadlift, the press, the row, the carry, the lunge. Some heavy, some light. Some weeks one is the focus, some weeks another. Six patterns. No king.
If a coach tells you otherwise, ask them what they’re training you for.
Talk soon, Mehdi
P.S. If you want a program that trains all six patterns instead of crowning one, Perennial Human is six days a week, full body, built for the long haul. $19/month.