About 3 months ago I got hit with sciatica, which I've had in the past but nothing like this. It seems to have cleared up for the most part (still get a twinge every now and then) but I hadn't deadlifted in about 2 months so decided to start off light and work up, adding 10% on to the bar each week. My first week back deadlifting I started with 120kg and it felt like twice that. Up until a couple of years ago I used to do the odd powerlifting meet and my max deadlift was 260kg. I reckon I'll be lucky to get anywhere near that again - short term aim is to crack 200kg again by the end of the year.