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so there is a moderate likelihood that i'll move to afghanistan later this year. if that happens, i will continue to train but it's unclear how. at the very least i'd hope to get a bar, some weights, a rack with a pull up bar, and a solid floor. that would allow me to at least power lift and maybe focus on getting reasonably strong for a while. and get really good at jumping rope and depth jumps/SVJ. would be good to have the old 1-2-3-4-5* numbers at a reasonable bodyweight, say, 190. i wouldn't be over there more than a year, i don't think, and if i came back and refocused on jumping and sprinting but with legitimately greater strength, that'd be cool.

no guarantee that it happens but my colleagues over there are trying to recruit me and the siren song is pretty strong. this is something i've wanted to do for a long time. plus no one could touch my swag if i made "faizabad barbell club" t-shirts. for, you know, myself.

also, i've been fantasizing about buying a house. that would be significantly easier after a year of higher salary+no taxes overseas.

*this means:
+100 pull up
200 overhead press
300 bench
400 squat
500 dead lift

[redacted]

i'm glad you've decided to abandon near-max-effort DLs from months of not practicing them as a way to improve back strength.

fuckin' awesome. he's 6'4 according to the YT description. he hits his head HARD on the rim, so i'm guessing...45-46" vert?

You should film the bounds and 2-leg bounds/broad jumps. Heck, film everything.

you're right. i need to just suck it up and buy a little tripod that i can use with my phone.

I've only read the last few posts, but from personal experience, you can gain strength back pretty quickly if you have muscle memory. Of course it's better to be patient, but I've done similar things and seen results. Over the past year my squat has gone up, then down, then up, and down, depending on how much sprints/plyos I did. If I did longer sprints I would become hamstring dominant and it would mess up my squat. Stopping sprints, and just doing some light squats allowed me to see massive increases in strength in a few days, about 10lbs a day. For example my squat was feeling so shitty i could barely do 245lbs 5 times when I had been able to do 275 for a few reps before. SO I did 245 3x3 (easy), one day, 255 3x3 the next day (a little harder), then 265 3x3 the next day, and I was back to where I started. That's of course a lighter approach but if I hadn't had that muscle memory before I wouldn't have been able to do that. The adaptations there were all neural mostly.

Now this wouldn't have worked if I stopped for years but I would think it would still work a little if you have muscle memory. With deadlifts I've experienced the same thing, I stopped DLing seriously for about a year I'd say, but just doing some brief intense lifting brought the strength back quickly. I did heavy singles too at one point, just a few to bring back that muscle memory.

TO conclude...I think the gain strength WITHOUT ever having it, lifting regularly (any program that builds strength i mean) is the best solution. If you IN THE PAST have had great strength, I think you can safely use a different approach, an approach that involves bringing back that muscle memory and strength without a lot of volume. However going lighter and just working on form can bring back muscle memory too... so I'm not saying lifting heavy singles at the risk of injury is the best approach... I'm saying that conventional lifting is not necessary. I unfortunately don't have the data to back it up but if I searched I'm sure I could find anecdotes.

yeah but he ALREADY TRIED THAT AND HURT HIS BACK IN THE PROCESS.

also, "conventional lifting is not necessary"...what does that even mean?

Yes, I have incorporated the 1-2 jump squat in my routine for quite a while.

By the way - I haven't seen Lance around here in a while. Any idea of his whereabouts?

seconded.