Can I blame deadlift regression on poor recovery?

[Icy]

Stats:
Male, 5'5", 181 lbs

Upper body lifts are on a compressed Texas method, as suggested by Nick Delgadillo:
Press: 117.5
Bench Press: 172.5

Squats (275 lb) are on advanced novice, with back off sets at 90%

Deadlifts are 1x a week for 320x1x5.

The question:

For the past two weeks, my deadlift attempts (320lbs) have been failing and regressing. I had an ok set at 315 the week before, but when I tried 320, I only got 2 reps, and the last one was a super grind. This week, I attempted 320 again, and I couldn't get the bar to budge at all. Indeed, I dropped down to 315, and couldn't move that either. Warm-up sets (135, 225) felt fine.

I have been having several recovery issues (poor sleep, extra stress at work), and I have been training through back pain caused by squats (I can pinpoint a single bad rep that caused it), though my eating has been stable. Can I blame these issues for my deadlift failures? I'm not sure if that's the culprit, given that my other lifts have been doing ok. I also feel like it's not a technique issue: my first reps during my 315 workout actually felt decently easy, and the failure at 320 was quite drastic.

What's the solution here? Should I add in a deadlift volume day? Take some time off to heal my back? Just try again? As someone beginning to enter intermediate programming, I'm a little paralyzed by the options here.

[Robert Santana]

Your back may be taxed from squatting. Which day are you deadlifting?

[Icy]

Thanks for the response!

I'm deadlifting on my light squat day, but I also recently bumped up my light squat weight to actually be 80% of my current working sets (It was 185x5x3, now 225x5x2). Does that explain it? It still feels pretty easy, though...

[Icy]

I'm deadlifting on my light squat days, though I've recently increased my light squat from 185 to 225 to actually get to 80% of my heavy day. Could that be the problem?

[Robert Santana]

Try deadlifting on your volume day. Assuming you have two days off between intensity and volume day, your back is likely fresher even with all of the squat work. Or you can drop the light day altogether. Either way you have to figure out an effective way to balance squat work with deadlift work. They both tax the back and hips so rather than treat the as separate lifts treat them as one. They both assist each other when planned properly.

[Dust Devil]

"poor sleep"

I've had similar issues (for years) due to poor sleep. It wasn't a matter of recovery, it was fatigue the day I was trying to lift. Just ran out of energy. I isolated the problem after failing like you did, then taking a nap, then successfully completing the workout. After making sure that I had a nap prior to lifting, I never encountered the problem again.

[Icy]

Try deadlifting on your volume day.

I actually have my squats on HLM, so my first day is my heavy day (1 top set, 2x5 medium)--that's why I had originally put deadlifts on the light day. I'll give it a try, though, and if it doesn't work I can swap the Heavy and Medium days.

As much as I would love it, I probably can't afford to take a nap before lifting, though I'll definitely work on my sleep in general. Work/lifting balance is pretty rough sometimes...

[Robert Santana]

If you can get all of the heavy work done when you are nice and fresh then do it. The idea is get the stress out of the way and spend the rest of the week recovering before doing it all over again next week.

[Dust Devil]

"I probably can't afford to take a nap before lifting"

Before I figured out the problem, I did learn to detect when I was about to fail: a failure usually came after a warm-up that felt very heavy. If the last single you do before your work set is very hard, you might be better off to quit for the day and try again tomorrow. Once I figured that out, I at least stopped regressing.

[Robert Santana]

You also want to keep in mind that after a certain point all deadlifts feel like 5 1RMs in a row.