Going back to an exercise you havent done in awhile

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Today i was doing leg press for the first time in a few weeks, @270x10 for fwonsets, then 295 for the 3rd set.
Then I tried to squat, yesterday i squatted a full routine of squats, as in like three sets for the first time in weeks as well.
I barely could do 3 sets of 10, often failing my last one...@125! When i used to do like 140 for 8 or 135 for 15.
after 3 sets i did a single squat at135 and called it a day... the weight had kept pushin my body forward and my back hurt.

Today i tried 125 and couldnt do barely 5 squats before being overwhelmed by fatigue.
I kept going like 5 times and it kept happening.

I looked stuff up and chilled for a bit and went back 3x10@115, kept my
back tight and chest up, just using my legs and using my back for balancing weight, and made it.
Its the same
with dls today

Keep working on it, your muscles do have the memory of remembering what you could do in the past. Once they remember, you should be able to push past it.

Well, as you can see, your legs are fairly strong. The legs isn't the issue you're having. This is the problem lots of people have in the squat. Their legs are plenty strong enough to handle the weight, but their lower back, abs, etc, are weak. Me, for example, I can only leg press in the 400s, but I could parallel squat like 275x5. In that aspect, leg strength didn't matter too much, no?

Either way, I do feel for your safety, you should switch to front squats to save your back the trouble. I had a strong back when I started lifting from ice skating (I could deadlift 255 or 265 my first time trying it) so I could get away with back squats, but you probably won't as easily. You gotta use less weight on a front squat, but you can ditch it much easier, and it'll force you to develop good squatting posture. Later on go back to back squats once you can front squat close to your bodyweight for one (not projected max, actual max.) You don't wanna squat with your back, as that pretty much turns it into a good morning:

Which is not a squat.

Also, how far do you go down when you squat? Parallel or Olympic (all the way) depth? I'd recommend going Olympic depth if you got enough flexibility for it (if not, work on your flexibility.)

Your legs seem fairly strong, but nobody can squat much with weak abs and a weak lower back. Don't jump on the bandwagon and scrap isolation exercises altogether (what works for Martin Berkhan doesn't necessarily work for everyone). After deadlifting and squatting, try doing the plank for a couple of minutes afterwards.

I've been liking hyperextensions for my back. I got some aches from arching it while pressing and it seems to have cleared it up.

Never arch your lower back when bench pressing; only your upper back. Powerlifters only arch their lower backs during tournaments and nobody who does not participate in these tournaments should mimic it. When your bench press weight gets heavy, you might want to consider using a belt as well.

I meant military press.

Oh, question, I was gonna PM you to ask, but you said doing bicep curls helped you get past bottlenecks in some exercises. I have tons of problems doing pullups, I suck bad at pullups, can't even do one dead hang one. It seems the bottleneck is my biceps, actually. I did do a bit of rows in the Smith machine at the recommendation of someone else, but because it's a compound movement, it drains me a bit too much to, say, do squats after or something. But it does seem the bottleneck is the biceps. As a kid in high school, I had a pretty impressive lat pulldown, like 120+lbs being totally out of shape and not caring about athletics at all, just messing around in gym class. But then I couldn't do one pullup. So should I do the rows anyway? Or should I do curls? If so, what type of curls should I do? Strict back to the wall or preachers, or just focus on throwing the most weight on possible even if I do have a bit of back movement? Dumbell or barbell? I don't care about hypertrophying the bicep, I just want the power to do pullups. What do you think?

Do Yates rows (with an underhand or overhand grip, depending on what you find the most comfortable) and bicep curls. Until you can do one good pull-up, you might want to stick with lat pull-downs as well. After you're able to do pull-ups, scrap pull-downs altogether. I can easily do the entire weight magazine on the pull-up machine without doing lat pull-downs regularly today.

Generally, you shouldn't do rows in a Smith machine (or anything else in a Smith machine, for that matter). When it comes to curls, do not cheat, but do not be a nazi about the tecnique either. Being to strict will just result in a plateau, whereas cheating won't achieve enough wear on the muscle. Generally speaking, doing the curls seated in a curl rack will be a good choice, as this will make it harder for you to use your hips to gain momentum.

A few safety precautions:

- Never do pull-ups behind your neck
- Try not to kip too much
- Never do pull-ups with an extremely wide grip (even if you sometimes see other people doing this), as this will put a helluva-lot-o strain on your rotator cuffs
- After you get good at them, try attaching a weight belt to your waist; for hypertrophy to be possible, one needs to progressively overload the muscle

Oh, I wasn't doing them like that. I was doing bodyweight rows using the Smith machine bar, but with feet on the ground and my body like this: / .

But what type of curls, though? Straight bar, preachers?

In my opinion, curls with a barbell is superior to curls with dumbbells (and it's less time consuming). To me, the best choices would either be with an EZ bar or a hammer bar. Using a straight bar when bicep curling, can be a painful affair on your wrists when the weight gets heavy.

You say i have strong legs?
Hiw so?

It means it's not a weakness. You're leg pressing what, 2.5x bodyweight? So the problem in your squats isn't your legs, it's your lower back and abs, they're having trouble supporting the weight. So the most efficient thing to do would be to work on those bottlenecks of your lower back and abs, then you'll be able to squat a lot more, nearer to where you can leg press.

So you should work more on the deadlift and getting it up, and/or do good mornings (if you feel safe doing them) or hyperextensions (with a plate after you get confident) to make the back stronger. Once your lower back/core gets stronger, then you can have a strong back arch, then you can squat more, safely.

Me personally, I feel like my ice skating helped that a great deal, I was forced to have good posture and get used to a back arch from skating, so then I did squats and it carried over.