I was doing those things on my own. The first time I did back squats after my last surgery, I started with a bar, no plates, and did a set of ten, scared shitless. My back muscles were so de-conditioned that the soreness from that effort lasted for days. I kept at it, adding resistance 5-10# at a time. Before long, I was doing sveral sets at 180#.
The difference is, with James's (my coach) help, I'm excelling at all this. The last time we did dead lifts, he said my form was perfect. He made a video of my deadlift and posted it to his Instagram page. That was a real gold star.