Training guide
The leg press lets you load your thighs and hips hard with your back supported and nothing to balance. Sit with your back and hips flat on the pad and your feet flat in the middle of the platform, lower until your knees reach about a right angle (or until your hips start to curl up, if that comes first), then press back to straight but soft knees, breathing out as you push.
Much of the gym advice about it is overstated. Foot position changed muscle activity little in most studies, the leg press loaded the knee less than the squat in lab studies, and in a 12-week trial it grew the glutes and inner thighs but barely the rectus femoris. The depth and lockout rules are coaching practice: no study has tested them against injuries.
This guide covers the set-up, foot position, depth, your knees and lower back, how much weight, the leg press against the squat, breathing and blood pressure, a machine leg workout and the warning signs, with a 3D demo of every step.
Sit with your back and hips flat against the pad and your whole feet on the platform, about hip-width apart, with the seat set so your knees bend to about a right angle at the bottom. Hold the handles lightly, and find the safety catches before your first heavy set.
Lower until your knees reach about 90 degrees, or until your hips start to curl off the seat, whichever comes first. That stopping point is coaching practice from the American Council on Exercise (ACE) and the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), not a rule tested against injuries; within it, a full range builds more strength and muscle than half reps.
Press to straight but soft knees and keep your heels down. This is coaching practice too: we found no study counting lockout injuries, but snapping your knees straight under a heavy load gains you nothing.
Turning your toes out and widening your stance changed muscle activity little or not at all in three studies. Feet higher worked the glutes more, and feet lower the front of the thighs more, in one study of 14 women; a study of 10 men found no difference in the thigh muscles. Use the stance that's comfortable and lets your knees follow your toes.
The front of your thighs, your glutes and your inner thighs. In a 12-week trial in 17 untrained adults, leg presses grew the glutes 15.4% and the adductor magnus (a large inner-thigh muscle) 6.2%, but the rectus femoris only 1.1%, and the hamstrings work little. Add leg extensions and leg curls if you want those muscles too.
Heavy presses to failure drove blood pressure to an average peak of 320/250 mmHg in 5 bodybuilders, partly from straining with the breath held, and heavy presses raised eye pressure by about 26 mmHg in young adults. With high blood pressure, heart disease or eye conditions, use moderate weights, keep breathing and stop well short of failure.
You sit or lie back against a pad and push a platform away with your feet: on a 45-degree sled, a horizontal seated machine or a vertical press. ACE rates it a beginner exercise, and NASM describes it as lower body strength work without the balance demands of the barbell squat.
The quadriceps do most of the work, mainly the vastus lateralis and vastus medialis, and their activity peaks near 90 degrees of knee bend. In 10 men at their 12-rep maximum, the quadriceps worked at about 39 to 52% of their maximum and the hamstrings at only about 12%; the squat drew about twice the hamstring activity.
In 17 untrained adults who trained one leg on the leg press and the other on the leg extension for 12 weeks, the leg press grew the whole quadriceps 4.9% (the leg extension 7.1%, not a significant difference), the gluteus maximus 15.4% and the adductor magnus 6.2%. The rectus femoris, the quadriceps muscle that also crosses the hip, grew only 1.1%, against 13.2% with leg extensions.
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You don't lift your own body and the sled runs at an angle, so the weights look huge: in one trial the leg-press group started at about 230 kg on the press, while a similar squat group started at about 97 kg on the squat, and 24 young adults averaged a 332 kg maximum on one leg press. People also manage more reps at a given share of their maximum: about 13 at 80% on the leg press, against about 9 on the bench press.
In 120 male sports students over 8 weeks (43 squatting, 40 leg pressing, 37 controls), leg-press strength rose 30.5% with leg presses and squat strength 23.9% with squats; jump height rose 14.2% with squats and a non-significant 5.2% with leg presses. In a 10-week trial of squats, leg presses or both, squats transferred better to squat strength, and the differences in jumping and balance weren't significant.
In one 12-week trial in 17 untrained adults, measured on scans, the leg press grew the quadriceps about as much as the leg extension, plus the gluteus maximus and adductor magnus, but the rectus femoris only 1.1% against 13.2%.
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In 20 adults over 12 weeks, seated leg curls grew the hamstrings more than lying leg curls (14% against 9%), which is why our machine leg workout uses them.
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Turning the toes out by 30 or 45 degrees, or widening the stance, changed muscle activity little or not at all in three studies, though a wide, high stance worked the hamstrings a little more in one. The foot-height effects come from one study of 14 women lifting at 80% of their maximum. A 2020 review of 12 studies called the evidence on technique changes still not compelling.
In 10 experienced lifters, compression in the knee, tension on the posterior cruciate ligament and pressure behind the kneecap were generally lower in the leg press than the squat, and rose with depth in both; neither strained the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). In 20 adults, pressure behind the kneecap was higher in the leg press than the leg extension beyond about 48 degrees of knee bend, and lower near straight.
Across 16 studies, training through a full range built more strength (effect size 0.56) and more lower-body muscle (0.88) than partial reps. An effect size of 0.5 is usually called moderate and 0.8 large.
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Measured directly in 5 bodybuilders, double-leg presses to failure peaked at an average of 320/250 mmHg; in 7 healthy men, sets at 70% of their maximum peaked at about 192/113. A brief held breath on heavy reps raised chest pressure to about 111 mmHg, and in a review of 16 studies the leg press drew some of the highest chest pressures of any lift. Eye pressure rose about 26 mmHg in 24 young adults.
A brief held breath is hard to avoid on very heavy reps, and it helps brace the trunk. In 5 healthy young men it didn't change how the heart pumped, and a review found its health risks in healthy lifters unconfirmed.
Across 13 studies, machine and free-weight training raised strength equally when compared head to head, and jumping and muscle growth didn't differ significantly in the studies that measured them; people got strongest on the kit they trained with. A 2026 overview by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) agrees.
In US emergency department records from 1990 to 2007, 90.4% of weight-training injuries involved free weights, most often a weight dropping on someone. The records can't tell you which is riskier for each hour of training, because they don't count how many people used each.
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No study has tested the depth rule or the no-lockout rule against injuries, or counted leg press injuries. Most foot position studies measured muscle activity in a few reps in small groups, which doesn't show what you build over months.
From ACE's seated leg press, NASM's leg press and our move page. The depth and no-lockout points are coaching practice, not tested against injuries.
Loading the 3D figure…
The movement on the figure: Leg press
Feet flat in the middle of the platform, about hip-width apart. ACE points the toes forward and NASM turns them slightly out; either is fine if your knees follow your toes.
Turning the feet out by 30 degrees made no difference to muscle activity or knee forces in 10 experienced men, and neither stance width (hip-width or half as wide again) nor turning the feet out by 45 degrees changed muscle activity in two inclined leg press studies. In one study a wide, high stance worked the hamstrings a little more than a narrow one, and a narrow stance raised compression in the knee.
In one study of 14 women lifting at 80% of their maximum, feet low on the platform worked the rectus femoris and vastus lateralis more, and feet high worked the glutes more. A study of 10 men found no difference in the thigh muscles between high and low feet; it didn't measure the glutes. Lower feet also bend your knees more at the same depth, so with pain at the front of the knee keep them in the middle or a little higher (our editorial view).
Gym charts that give each foot position a percentage for each muscle aren't based on any measurements we could find. Choose a comfortable stance, and change one thing at a time (our view).
ACE lists a single-leg press as a variation. It helps even out the two sides; use much less weight, 2 to 3 sets of 8 to 12 each leg (our editorial starting point).
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ACE and NASM both set the bottom at about 90 degrees of knee bend, which is about where quadriceps activity peaks; NASM lists going much further as a common mistake.
ACE says avoid lifting your bottom off the seat or rounding your lower back, and don't let your thighs press into your ribs. If your pelvis starts to tuck at the bottom, you've gone deep enough for now. This is coaching practice: no study has tested it against injuries.
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Within that range, go all the way. A full range built more strength and muscle than partial reps across 16 studies, so a heavier press with a shorter range isn't progress.
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Knee forces rose with knee bend in both the leg press and the squat. The researchers suggested working between straight and about 50 degrees of bend for people who want to keep knee forces low.
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Press to straight but soft knees. ACE says don't hyperextend (lock out) your knees, and NASM lists locking out as a mistake that stresses the joint. We found no study counting lockout injuries, so treat it as coaching practice.
In lab studies of experienced lifters, the leg press put less load through the knee than the squat and no strain on the ACL. No study has counted leg press knee injuries, but the evidence doesn't support calling it bad for knees.
Pressure behind the kneecap rises as you bend: the leg press loaded it less than the leg extension near straight, and more beyond about 48 degrees. Our knee pain when squatting guide limits the depth at first, with 3 sets of 10 to 12 for kneecap pain, and allows pain of 0 to 2 out of 10, or up to 5 if your knee is back to normal by the next morning.
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Our knee pain when squatting guide uses slow, heavy leg presses for tendon pain, building from 4 sets of 15 to 4 sets of 6 with more load, from nearly straight to about 90 degrees of bend, as a tendon trial did.
The pad supports your back as long as your pelvis stays down. Lower back pain on the leg press usually means you're going too deep, so stop higher and lighten the load. Our back pain guides allow pain up to about 5 out of 10, settling within an hour or so and no worse the next morning; stop anything that sends pain, pins and needles or numbness down a leg.
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You get best at the one you train: leg presses raised leg-press strength by 30.5% and squats raised squat strength by 23.9% in 8 weeks. Across 13 studies, machines and free weights built strength equally when compared head to head.
Squat training improved jump height significantly and leg presses didn't, and in a second trial squats transferred better to squat strength. The squat also trains your balance and your trunk.
When you need your back supported, can't squat yet or squat comfortably, or want to work your legs hard without balancing a bar. NASM suggests using both, according to your goals.
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Many programmes squat first and press after, as our leg day workout does. Leg extensions and seated leg curls cover the muscles the press misses.
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Pick a weight you think you could lift 10 to 12 times and do 8. If you could have done 2 or 3 more, it's right; if many more, go up next set (our plans' starting-weight method).
At 80% of their maximum, people manage about 13 leg-press reps against about 9 bench-press reps, so charts built on the bench press underestimate your leg-press reps. And your leg-press numbers will dwarf your squat.
The sled's own weight, its angle and its friction differ between machines, so compare your numbers only with your own on the same machine (our editorial advice).
Our plans add the smallest step you have, roughly 2 to 10%, with smaller jumps for the upper body; the leg press can take the bigger ones. A 10 kg plate on a 150 kg press is under 7%.
Blood pressure climbs during any hard set, and most when you strain with your breath held. Double-leg presses to failure peaked at an average of 320/250 mmHg in 5 bodybuilders; in 7 healthy men, sets at 70% of their maximum peaked at about 192/113.
On very heavy reps a brief held breath is hard to avoid and helps brace the trunk; in 5 healthy young men it raised chest pressure to about 111 mmHg without changing how the heart pumped, and a review found its risks in healthy lifters unconfirmed. Long, straining held breaths are what to avoid.
In 24 young adults, heavy leg presses raised eye pressure by about 26 mmHg on average, and to 70 mmHg in one person. With glaucoma or diabetic eye disease, ask your eye team before heavy lifting.
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The American Heart Association says people with controlled high blood pressure can safely do low- to moderate-intensity strength training with proper breathing; our blood pressure guide uses weights you could lift 10 to 15 times. Blood Pressure UK advises speaking to your doctor or nurse first if your readings are 180/100 or higher, and starting nothing new at 200/110 or above.
Heavy presses raise the pressure in your chest and tummy as well. With heart disease, a hernia or a prolapse, use moderate loads, keep breathing, and ask your specialist or a pelvic health physiotherapist before heavy lifts, as our group cautions advise.
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The narrow stance takes the standard press's 3 sets of 8 to 12 (our plans); the hack squat and lying machine squat their move pages' 2 to 3 sets of 8 to 12; calf presses 3 sets of 12 to 20, as our lower body gym workout does for calves, with the safety catches engaged.
For the muscles the press misses: leg extensions, 2 sets of 12 to 15, as in our leg day workout; leg curls, 3 sets of 10 to 15, hip abduction, 2 sets of 12 to 20, and seated calf raises, 3 sets of 12 to 20, as in our lower body gym workout.
Our squat guide's ladder, with the leg press as a machine step; the squat guide gives the doses for each step.
3 sets of 8 to 12, as in our plans and NASM's advice. Our full-body machine workout uses 3 sets of 12 to 15, as NASM does for muscular endurance, and our leg day workout does 3 sets of 10 after squats.
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Stop 2 or 3 reps short of failure: 2 to 3 RIR (reps in reserve: how many more reps you could have done), our plans' rule for big lifts. In your first two weeks, do 2 sets and stop each with 3 or 4 reps to spare.
90 seconds to 2 minutes, as our plans advise for big lifts in sets of 8 to 12.
Train your legs about twice a week, our plans' default. In the ACSM's overview, strength rose most with at least two sessions a week.
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When every set reaches 12, add the smallest step and go back to 8 (our plans' double progression).
Write down your seat setting, foot position and depth with the weight and reps. A heavier press with a shorter range isn't progress, so keep the depth the same.
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Leg-press strength rose about 30% in 8 weeks in young men, and in untrained adults the quadriceps grew about 5% and the glutes about 15% in 12 weeks. Strength rises faster than size at first, and gains slow with experience, as our progressive overload guide explains.
Your lower back rounds under the load. Stop just above that point.
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Stop just short of locked, with your knees soft.
Keep your whole foot down and push through it.
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NASM lists it as a common fault. Keep your knees in line with your toes, and lighten the load if they drift in.
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Straining with your breath held sends blood pressure up sharply. Breathe out as you press.
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Half reps build less. Use a weight you can move through your full, comfortable range.
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Find them before your first heavy set, and lock them before you take your feet off, as our move page advises.
Your numbers stop comparing. Note the setting (our editorial advice).
Keep the press shallower at first and follow our knee pain when squatting guide's doses and pain rule.
Keep your pelvis down and the depth shallower, and follow our back pain guides; stop for pain that travels down a leg.
Use moderate loads you could lift 10 to 15 times, breathe out on every press and stop well short of failure. With glaucoma or diabetic eye disease, ask your eye team before heavy lifting, and with heart disease, your cardiac team.
Breathe out on every press, leave out maximal lifts and held-breath straining until it's repaired, and stop anything that makes it bulge or ache more, as our hernia guide advises. After a groin hernia repair, the NHS says no heavy lifting or strenuous activity for at least 4 to 6 weeks; follow your surgical team.
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Get advice from a pelvic health physiotherapist before heavy presses, and ease off if you feel heaviness, dragging or a bulge, as our group cautions advise.
The NHS says you can carry on strength training at the gym if you already do. In later pregnancy it advises avoiding lying flat on your back for more than a few minutes, so keep the backrest more upright and the depth short enough that your thighs don't press on your bump (our suggestion).
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Stop higher, and try a slightly wider stance with your toes turned out a little (our suggestion; see our hip impingement guide).
The machine leg workout is a leg day on machines only; the leg day workout puts the press after squats; the full-body machine workout and gym workout for seniors use it as the main leg exercise.
A 45-minute leg day on machines only: the leg press, then leg extensions and seated leg curls for the muscles it misses, hip abduction and calf presses.
45 minBeginner10 movesCardio machine, Strength machineA gym leg day: back squats, leg press, leg curls, Bulgarian split squats, leg extensions and calf raises.
55 minIntermediate9 movesA wall, A barbellA 45-minute full-body gym workout on machines: leg press, chest press, machine row, leg curl, shoulder press and arms, with sets, reps and rest.
45 minBeginner14 movesCardio machine, A bandA 50-minute gym session for older adults and sarcopenia: 7 machines for the legs, chest and back from the UK prescription, then a short balance finish.
50 minBeginner12 movesCardio machine, A bench or boxLearn how many reps you really have left: machine sets where you call out your reps in reserve, then keep going to check, in about 30 minutes.
30 minBeginner7 movesCardio machine, A bandThe leg press comes in through the leg day and full-body machine workouts.
A 4-day upper/lower split: two upper body and two lower body gym days, each muscle trained twice a week, with sets, reps and progression.
4 training days50 minIntermediate3 days a weekFor after about 8 weeks of a beginner plan: three full-body sessions a week, one heavy, one moderate and one light, in a gym or at home, for 12 weeks.
3 training days50 minIntermediate6 days a weekA 6-day push/pull/legs plan for experienced lifters: two push, two pull and two leg days, with sets, reps, rest and lighter weeks.
6 training days55 minAdvancedFor chest pain that feels tight or like squeezing, or spreads to your arms, neck or jaw; a headache that starts suddenly and is extremely painful, or comes with numbness or weakness, difficulty speaking or balancing, confusion or loss of vision; someone who faints while exercising or can't be woken within a minute; back pain with numbness or weakness in both legs, loss of feeling around your genitals or anus, or bladder or bowel changes; or a hernia with very bad tummy pain that doesn't go away, being sick, swelling with the skin changing colour, or being unable to fart or poo.
For dizziness, unusual breathlessness, chest pain or pressure, or palpitations during exercise: the American Heart Association says these need immediate medical evaluation.
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For a headache triggered or made worse by coughing, sneezing, bending down or exercising; a knee that's very painful, can't move or take weight, is badly swollen or has changed shape, or locks, gives way or clicks painfully; back pain with feeling hot, cold, shivery or unwell, or severe pain that starts suddenly or gets worse quickly; or pain in or around a hernia. In the US, contact your doctor or urgent care.
If knee pain doesn't improve within a few weeks; back pain doesn't improve after a few weeks, is worse at night or when you sneeze, cough or poo, or comes with weight loss you can't explain; dizziness won't go away or keeps coming back; after any faint; or if you think you have a hernia, such as a lump in your groin, upper thigh or tummy that gets bigger when you cough or sneeze.
Heavy, tired thighs and glutes for a day or two after a new session are normal. Sharp knee pain, pain that builds through a set, back pain that travels down a leg or a new bulge in your groin or tummy isn't: stop the set, and see our knee, back and hernia guides.
In lab studies of experienced lifters, it put less load through the knee than the squat and none on the ACL. Knee loads rise with depth, which is why our knee pain plans use it with a shorter range. No study has counted injuries.
Toe angle and stance width changed muscle activity little or not at all. The foot-height effects come from one study of 14 women, and a study of 10 men found no difference in the thigh muscles. Charts with a percentage for each muscle aren't based on measurements.
The leg press grew the quadriceps about as much as leg extensions did, plus the glutes and inner thighs, and built leg-press strength by 30.5% in 8 weeks. Squats carried over better to squatting and jumping.
It worked the thigh muscles less hard at the same relative effort and the hamstrings about half as much, needs no balance and carried over less to jumping. It's a different tool, not a straight swap.
A full range builds more, but past the point where your pelvis curls up, your lower back rounds under the load. Stopping there is coaching practice, not a tested rule; no study shows extra benefit beyond it.
A brief held breath helps brace on very heavy reps, and its risks in healthy lifters are unconfirmed. But straining presses to failure drove blood pressure to an average peak of 320/250 mmHg, and heavy presses raised eye pressure. With high blood pressure, heart disease or eye conditions, breathe out and stay well short of failure.
Sit with your back and hips flat on the pad, put your whole feet on the platform about hip-width apart, and set the seat so your knees bend to about a right angle at the bottom. Release the safety catches, lower under control, press back up through your whole foot without snapping your knees straight, and lock the catches when you finish.
In the middle of the platform, about hip-width apart, toes forward or turned out a little. Toe angle and stance width made little or no difference to muscle activity in studies, and the claim that high feet work the glutes and low feet the quads comes from one study of 14 women. Use the position that's comfortable and lets your knees follow your toes.
Until your knees reach about a right angle, or as far as your hips and lower back stay on the pad, whichever comes first. That's coaching practice rather than a tested rule, but going past the point where your pelvis curls up adds no proven benefit. Within that range, a full range builds more than half reps.
No: press to straight but soft knees. It's standard coaching advice and we found no study counting lockout injuries, but there's nothing to gain from snapping your knees straight under a heavy load.
Not for healthy knees. In lab studies of experienced lifters it put less load through the knee than the squat, with no strain on the ACL. With pain at the front of the knee, use a shallower range for a while and keep pain within our knee guides' rule.
Usually you're going too deep, so your pelvis curls up and your lower back rounds off the pad. Stop higher, keep your hips down and lighten the load. Back pain with numbness in both legs, or bladder or bowel changes, needs a 999 call.
The front of your thighs, your glutes and your inner thighs: in a 12-week trial it grew the glutes by about 15% and the adductor magnus by about 6%. It barely works the rectus femoris or the hamstrings, so add leg extensions and leg curls if you want those.
Both build leg strength, and you get best at the one you train: leg presses raised leg-press strength by about 30% and squats raised squat strength by about 24% in 8 weeks. Squats improved jumping more. The leg press suits you if you need back support, can't squat yet or want to work hard without balancing.
Start with a weight you could lift 10 to 12 times, do 8 and adjust. You'll press far more than you squat because you don't lift your own body, the sled runs at an angle and people manage more reps per load on the leg press. Machines differ, so compare yourself with yourself.
3 sets of 8 to 12, stopping 2 or 3 reps short of failure, with 90 seconds to 2 minutes' rest, and train your legs about twice a week. Lighter sets of 12 to 15 work too if they're hard, as in our full-body machine workout.
With controlled blood pressure, moderate strength training with proper breathing is considered safe. Use weights you could lift 10 to 15 times, breathe out on every press and stop well short of failure: straining presses to failure drove blood pressure to an average peak of 320/250 mmHg in a lab study. If your readings are 180/100 or higher, speak to your doctor or nurse first.
With a hernia, keep the load moderate, breathe out, stop anything that makes it bulge and see a GP about it; heavy presses raise the pressure in your tummy a lot. In pregnancy you can keep training if you already do, but in later pregnancy avoid lying back for long: keep the backrest upright and the depth short enough that your thighs don't press on your bump.
Exercise education, not a personal prescription, and clinical review of these guides is pending. Check with a GP before starting hard training if you have a heart condition, chest pain, dizziness or breathlessness when active, and stop for sharp or increasing pain. Health disclaimer.
