What a great business opportunity ... if there were some simple in-home test you could perform with your saliva or urine that could give you an objective measure of your recovery status. There might be some useful information in a before/after MRI or muscle biopsy, but that's not practical.
I don't think so. I'm not familiar with competitive lifts requiring momentum, because I never did them. But what you said about upright rows being "easier" on the rotator cuff didn't sit right. So I checked, to confirm. The power clean does not require the splaying of the elbows to the side, which is a principal feature of the upright row:
That's correct. I do seated leg presses, hamstring curls, and leg extensions as my main leg exercises these days.
Sucks, Bro. All I do is squat; thrusters; deads, bench/pushups; snatch. I have a reconstructed ankle and had a severed achilles... maybe there is some treatment for you back? Which vertebrae?
Squats/thrusters today. I start with two sets of 40 thrusters and then the squats inside a cage. Tomorrow is off. Sunday is bench and PUs. Monday off. Tuesday heavy DLs. Wed off and then it starts over again next Thursday. I always take a day off between compound workouts.