Squat Damnit!
There is nothing more functional, nothing more applicable, and nothing SAFER in training than the squat.
End of story. I don't want to hear it. Scream whatever kind of shearing forces, compressive forces, lower back issues you want to. If you move through your day on two feet on a regular basis, you should be doing some sort of squatting.
You squat every morning getting out of bed, every time you get up from your morning constitutional, get out of the car, up off the subway seat... You squat. Shouldn't you practice to be better, more efficient and stronger at it? Knee problems, hip issues, lower back problems; there is a variant of the squat that can and actually will help you improve. That having been said, if you have any of those issues, remember, consult a licensed professional before taking on any physically exertive activities. Learn your limitations, how to work with them and get busy improving your strength and mobility.
Pick a sandbag up off the floor. Stand up off a 6” to 12” step repeatedly. Put on a backpack full of books and squat down to touch the floor, stand up, rinse and repeat. Load a bar with your 3 rep maximal load and go to town. Whatever. There is a variant that fits your level in such a way as to challenge your fitness and coordination.
You're working posture, coordination, legs, hips, back, shoulders, proprioception, balance…The sheer act of walking is a form of reciprocating unilateral squat. So find something, put it on the ground or some place that lends its self to easy loading and PICK IT UP!!
The Other Balance
You've trained yourself to balance your body, now train the body its self to be balanced. Instead of equilibrium, this time I'm talking about balanced movement. For each push, there's a pull.
You've seen that guy walking around the gym on pencil legs with the rounded shoulders, knuckles dragging the ground while he walks? That's anterior rounding. He's not working through his back and legs as much as he's working his bench and those "curls for the girls." He's also predispositioned himself for injury and back pain. Don't be Neanderthal man. Train balanced movements.
Pull a weight towards your body. Do it a certain amount of times. Now find an equivalent weight and push it away from the body in the same manner. Pick a weight up and throw it away.
Take foundations 2, 4, 5 & 7. Get outside, reach down to the ground, pick up something heavy and throw the thing as hard as you can. Ask the boys over at the Eads House of Pain how much fun it can be to throw a kettlebell on the beach.
Train your balance.
It's like saying "This one goes to 11!" If you've got all your stabilizers switched on and firing just by standing up, now we're ratcheting them up a little higher by challenging your equilibrium. The more you challenge your body's ability to maintain balance, the more you're challenging it and stimulating strengthening responses from the body.
It would be nice if all life's demands were thrown at us when we're standing at the ready in the universal athletic stance, but they're not. You never know when you might have to jump back up the curb because of that taxi you didn't see coming. And you're certainly not necessarily going to be standing in correct neutral posture ready to receive your luggage in the middle of the swarming throngs of people at the baggage carousel when you lunge past that blue hair in front of you to grab your bag.
Don't Limit Yourself to the Gym.
Get outside. Get some fresh air. One of the great fitness pioneers and one of the strongest men ever to walk the earth, Arthur Saxon himself, was a huge proponent of getting out in to the fresh air. "Outdoor work helps to develop this (pure) energy, and such sports as wrestling, swimming, walking etc. etc, keep the muscles in order and give enduring strength which steads the lifter in good stead..." (The Development of Physical Power, 1906) There were very few things he valued as much and there currently are very few things I believe allow us to connect out routines and programs to our actual lives.
Practice doing the things you enjoy doing or find yourself doing every day. Take your regular afternoon walk, but wear a backpack with a few pounds of books in it. Take the dogs for a jog instead of a walk. See how many times you can squat down and lift that 2 gallon jug of olive oil you got at Costco from the ground back up into the trunk before you have to rest. See if you can make it all the way across those monkey bars.
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