I’ve struggled with lower back pain for over 20yrs. Lifting has provided the best relief, that is until i “t\weak” it and then need to back off/stop until it heals up. So once again I was making decent progress. ~340 est. 1RM for squat and 390 est. 1RM for DL and something got tweaked either in the gym or playing with my kids. Nothing sticks out as a oh shit moment, leg just started giving me issues when waliking. My lower back is always tight but when walking my left leg starting going numb and feeling like it was going to sleep. This has gotten worse in the last few days and now just standing makes the entire leg, from upper hip to my foot ache and tingle like it’s going to sleep. I’m assuming i have pressure on the sciatic nerve pain. I don’t want to completely stop squats or deadlifts like I’ve done in the past. My back is tight when I work out but no nerve pain/leg numbness. I’m assuming I should back off but I’m unsure how much weight to reduce since I really don’t have pain when lifting. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
From your description it sounds like you can continue your training. There is no “correct” amount of weight to reduce that I can tell you here - but most of what people describe as “sciatica” resolves on its own, as you have experienced. Perhaps this is a good situation to use RPE to guide your weight selection.