AT THE RISK OF SOUNDING LIKE A BROKEN RECORD, MY KNEES HARDLY EVER HURT SINCE I STARTED DOING SQUATS: How do I prevent my knees from hurting when I descend stairs? And in my case it’s not about arthritis. Since I was a kid, I had knee pain when I was tired or ill; people said it was “growing pains” then, but I never grew out of it. I’m sure that it was instead caused by some sort of muscle imbalance, which got worse when the weaker muscle got tired. Anyway, that doesn’t happen any more.

Will squats, done properly, cure all your ills? Nope. But they’ve done a lot to correct many of my physical issues. Which also proves that you can’t just assign these problems to age, whether youth (“growing pains”) or getting older. The “you’re just getting old” diagnosis is usually a sign of a lazy doctor.

Practically-mandatory Mark Rippetoe plug here. Hey, this stuff has worked for me.