Sudden strength loss in one of the big lifts.

So I believe I figured out my back injury. It feels better now but its made me realize something. I was disregarding RPE on my deadlift. My tested max was 405. A week or so later 315 was a 9 when I typically did that for sets of 5. My weight has been consistent as well as other factors so I’m not sure why it would fall so suddenly. My other lifts are fine though and I’ve been able to make some squat and ohp pr’s. Are there typical causes of this. Is this my body telling me I need a non strength specific block? I personally dont feel overtrained but I may just be being stubborn again.

Not really possible for us to give a confident answer here. If your squat is completely unaffected, there’s probably a substantial psychological component (which is common in the aftermath of an injury) at play.

My squat has been going up slowly but I can’t say that it wouldn’t be going up faster otherwise. I guess a few lbs here and there for the deadlift due to psych factors I understand but 90+ lbs? I felt performance dipping before the injury and now that my back feels completely fine 315 wont even budge. Not because of pain but because it feels like a truck. Thinking back I noticed it on other things as well before the injury. My tire flips became a 10 instead of an 8 along with sandbag to shoulder. (GPP work). I’ve taken time off of pure strength work in the form of illness and inconsistency but never a full hypertrophy block.

Thanks!!

Also I still have pretty conservative lifts at 170lbs bodyweight so I may still be experiencing NLP in those lifts.

My reasoning would be the same as Austin’s. Given the overlap in the muscles used for deadlift and low bar backsquat it doesn’t seem like the reduction in weight could be attributable to loss of muscle. It would be like if your bench press went from 225 to 165 while you overhead press rose from 135 to 140 during that period. Given the overlap that wouldn’t make sense either. Maybe your brain is nervous about the injury and simply won’t fire a high enough percentage of neurons to let your lift the weight. If its a mind issue rather than muscle issue start at 295 and lift that. Next lift do 305 and so on. Within a few weeks you’ll be back to where you left at as the brain learns it is not going to injury the back by letting those neurons fire.

Looking back at my training log from two cycles ago, My squat was 10lbs lighter at the same point in the program and my deadlift was 75lbs heavier. Both are 1@8.