Need Advice for Training My Mom
So my mom is visiting and mentioned that she should start doing yoga or something to improve her health since she sees her sisters quality of life sliding down quickly. Within seconds I had the Barbell Prescription in front of her and was busy telling her that strength is the most important adaptation she could make to improve her quality of life. And I think I made a sale here! I'm going to take her through all the lifts this week and get a program set up that she can take back to the gym in her small town. But I also have never helped anyone in her demographic and am a little unsure on a few things. And I haven't taken her through the lifts yet so maybe I'll find she can do everything, but I'd rather have all the necessary modifications ironed out prior to the first session with her.
She's 65 years old and has not been active for a looooong time. She's overweight and has had a knee placed in the past 5 years as well. My main question is what I should do for squats. Watching her air squat I doubt she has the mobility and balance to do a useful squat to anything close to depth right now. So I'm thinking that box squats or leg press is likely her best option if she can't do a normal squat, but since I'm not sure if her gym would have either boxes for box squats or a leg press machine, would alternating between 1x5 deadlifts for workout A and 3x5 lighter deadlifts for workout B be a good way to go (moving to 5x3 once her linear progression plays out)? It would give her some lower body volume if she can't do any kind of the squat variation.