Originally Posted by
Michael Wolf
Answer 1: There's no way to know for sure. Judgement call based on how your warm-ups feel. When you take time off, you'll always have to go somewhat by feel in terms of what you do when you come back. There's no perfect formula to know exactly how much you backslid during that time off. Missing only a week usually won't lead to too big a slide (unless you were very sick or barely ate or something like that), but there will usually be some re-adjusting to do in terms of acclimation to volume and the feeling of a heavy weight in your hands/on your back.
Answer 2: 380 is a very high % of 415 to be doing for volume. I seem to recall you were doing something other than 5x5 for squat volume though - was it 4 triples? Which isn't really going to work long term for VD, anyway, but I digress. If it were 380x5x5 and 415x5, I'd just drop some weight, drop a couple sets the first week, and then work back up. So the next week, 365x5x3. Then 365x5x4. Then 365x5x5. While moving ID up accordingly. Then you can try adding 2.5lbs at a time to volume day, or, every time you add 5 lbs to VD, you drop a set for a week. So when you go from 365 to 370, you only do 4 sets. Then the next week, do 370x5x5. Then 375x5x4. Then 375x5x5. And so on.
Also, if you struggle to hit your 5 reps on ID consistently, don't be a slave to 5. Switch for a week or two to triples, then move down to doubles etc...