Any athletic pursuit is going to injure you eventually.

Not pursuing any athletics is going to kill you and make the late years of your life frustrating a you lose capabilities. And you'll probably get injured as your body deteriorates.

You choose.

Sure, but there are ways to start active and keep your core, lower back, and legs strong that have lower injury rates than deadlifts and squats.

I think a lot of people do these lifts with way too much weight, opting to play the stats game with the poundage while sometimes doing just two reps per set. More reps with less weight and it's a safer workout.

Anything physical pushed to the limits will result in injury. Most people never get an injury casually playing pickup basketball. Then watch one season in the NBA, you'd probably see half a dozen ligaments snap on live TV.

I don't think any NBA player has injured themselves from deadlift, because they know how to lift properly and are supervised by physical therapists during practice of course, but in the intensity of an NBA game this is no longer a controlled reaction taking place. Lifting heavy puts strain on a lot of variables at once, not unlike an all out NBA game.

Do you have stats to back that up? I'm having trouble finding it, but the only study I've ever seen on the subject showed lifting as being fairly on par with other athletic activities.

However, when it comes to results, squat and deadlift are way ahead in producing muscular and skeletal adaptation.

Almost certainly mobility issues. Im almost 40 and still squat at least once a week.

This or bad form is what everyone says after the fact, this is exactly what they said until they threw out their back.

The good thing is that once you recognize it, it's fairly easily remediated. Get that ROM back and you're back in business. Rarely is surgery necessary.

Is it possible they were going for ego lifts? From your examples, do you know the weight they were lifting for each exercise?

One was warming up, so he was dead-lifting 135 and he normally lifted 300 x 8.

And the other was squatting in the 400's which was around his 5 rep max.

Sounds link these folks were really pushing their bodies. I don't think these fall in the "get in shape" weight ranges, but I'd be willing to listen to why that's not the case. Id imagine there are a lot more factors than just form that go into your bodies safety when you're lifting that big regularly.