Hey Seashell. Thanks for asking. My back is doing great. At the time I reduced my squat from 135lbs to 85lbs. Since I'm doing 5x5, I decided to just work back up 5lbs at a time again. I did 130 this week and next week I'm back at 135. YAY! No pain, no strained feeling. I'm glad I was patient enough to take it little by little.