Leg press: how to do it, foot placement and how much to lift

Muscles the leg press works

The leg press works the front of the thigh (quadriceps) and the glutes hardest. The inner thigh (adductors) helps, most of all the big adductor magnus. The hamstrings and the calves work a little.

A 2020 review of 12 studies found that the outer and inner quad muscles worked hardest, with the rectus femoris close behind. Quad activity rose as the knees bent further. These studies measure electrical activity with sensors on the skin (EMG), which shows which muscles fire, not which ones grow.

Two training studies measured growth:

• In 17 untrained adults, 11 men and 6 women, one leg did the leg press and the other leg extensions for 12 weeks. On MRI scans, the leg press grew the glutes by 15.4% and the adductor magnus by 6.2%. The quads grew by 4.9%, against 7.1% for leg extensions, a difference that was not significant. The knee bent only to 90 degrees.
• In 33 untrained women over 10 weeks, the 45-degree leg press and the stiff-leg deadlift grew glute thickness by 6.0%. Adding the hip thrust made it 9.3%.

One quad muscle barely grows from the leg press. In the 12-week study, the rectus femoris, which also crosses the hip, grew 1.1% from the leg press and 13.2% from leg extensions. If you want the whole front of the thigh, add leg extensions.

How to leg press

These steps are for the 45-degree leg press, where you push a loaded sled along a rail.

1. Load the plates evenly on both sides. Set the safety stops just below the lowest point you plan to reach.
2. Sit down with your back and hips flat against the pad.
3. Put your feet in the middle of the platform, about hip width apart, toes turned out a little.
4. Push the platform up a little, then turn the safety handles out to release the sled. Hold the handles at your sides.
5. Breathe in and brace your trunk. Lower the sled under control by bending your knees towards your chest.
6. Keep your knees in line with your toes, and your heels flat on the platform.
7. Go as deep as you can while your hips and lower back stay on the pad. For many people that is a little past a right angle at the knee.
8. Push through your whole foot until your legs are nearly straight. Stop just before your knees lock, breathe out, then brace again.
9. After the last rep, straighten your legs, turn the safety handles back in and let the sled rest on them.

On a horizontal leg press, you sit upright and push a platform tied to a weight stack. Set the seat so your knees start bent at about a right angle. The stack takes the place of the safety stops.

Foot position: high, low, wide or narrow

Your feet change the leg press less than gym talk suggests. Higher feet tilt the work slightly towards your glutes, and lower feet towards your quads. Width and toe angle made no clear difference.

• High or low: in 14 trained women at 80% of their max, high feet worked the glutes harder. Low feet worked 2 quad muscles harder. In 10 experienced male lifters, high and low feet gave the same muscle activity and knee forces, but that study did not measure the glutes.
• Wide or narrow: in the 10 lifters, a wide stance with high feet worked the hamstrings harder. A narrow stance pressed the knee joint and kneecap harder. In 28 trained men and women, feet at 1 or 1.5 times hip width made no difference to the quads.
• Toes in or out: turning the feet out by 30 or 45 degrees changed nothing measured in either study.
• Depth: high feet let your hips bend more and your knees less. Low feet do the opposite, and your heels may lift at the bottom. That is mechanics, not a measured result.

All of this is EMG from small groups. The 2020 review said the evidence on leg press variations is not convincing, and only 1 of its 12 studies measured the glutes. No training study has compared foot positions for muscle growth.

So pick a spot in the middle where your heels stay down and your hips stay on the pad. For more glute work, move your feet a few centimeters higher. In the study that grew the glutes by 15.4%, the toes sat at the top edge of the platform.

Where the advice differs

Most leg press technique is coaching habit, not tested in studies. Where coaches disagree, the right answer depends on your hips, your knees and your goal.

Common mistakes and how to fix them

Sets, reps and rest for the leg press

There is no single right number. The table is a starting point built on the research on lifting in general. None of these studies tested the leg press on its own.

On Strength Level, a site where lifters log their sets, 3 sets of 10 is the most logged sled leg press workout for men and for women.

What the studies show:

• Heavy weights build more strength. Muscle grows about as well with light or heavy weights, if the sets go close to failure.
• More weekly sets bring more muscle, up to a point. Strength gains level off sooner.
• With the same weekly sets, training a muscle more often does not add size.
• You do not need to reach failure. With the safety stops set, the leg press is a safe lift to take close to it.
• In 21 trained men, 3-minute rests built more thigh muscle and more strength than 1-minute rests. A review of 9 studies found little extra muscle from resting longer than about 90 seconds.

For longer answers, read how many sets and reps build muscle and how long to rest between sets.

Warm-up sets before the leg press

Do 2 or 3 lighter sets before your working sets. For example, 10 reps at about half your working weight, then 5 reps at about 70% to 80%. The sled itself weighs something, and that weight differs from machine to machine. On a heavy sled, the empty sled can be your first set.

Only part of this has studies behind it:

• In 15 trained men, a warm-up set at 80% of the working weight led to more total work across the workout than warm-ups at 40% or 60%. On the inclined leg press alone, the difference just missed significance.
• In another 15 men, the kind of warm-up made no difference to reps in the bench press, squat and arm curl.
• Before a leg press max test, 20 minutes of moderate cycling plus warm-up sets raised the max by 8.4% in 13 trained people. In 16 strength-trained men, 15 easy minutes raised it by about 3%, and 15 harder minutes lowered it by about 4%.

The exact sets and reps are habit. No study shows that warm-up sets prevent injury. After squats, one set at about 80% of your leg press weight is usually enough.

How much should you leg press?

No study sets a standard for the leg press, and no sport competes in it. The tables online come from what gym app users log. Leg press numbers also depend on the machine more than most lifts do.

Strength Level built its sled leg press table from 2,661,088 lifts its users logged from 2017 to 2026. After checks for implausible, duplicate or automated entries, 728,137 results remained. Each level is the one-rep max (1RM, the most weight you can push once) that beats a share of its users:

Rounded, the intermediate line sits at 2.75 times body weight for men and 2.25 times for women. The average logged sled leg press is 227 kg (500 lb) for men and 151 kg (333 lb) for women. Nothing checks depth, and the page does not say whether users count the sled. Read the table as a rough guide, not a target.

Why are the numbers so big? You use far more weight than in a squat. On Strength Level's own tables, the intermediate man at 80 kg squats 132 kg and leg presses 230 kg, about 1.7 times as much. The intermediate woman at 60 kg squats 72 kg and leg presses 140 kg, about 1.9 times. StrengthLog has no leg press table, and its guide gives no figure either.

The machine changes the number. Sleds weigh different amounts, and some people count the sled while others count only the plates. On a 45-degree sled, part of the weight rests on the rails, so you push less than the plates and sled weigh. That is mechanics, not a measured figure. Friction and seat position differ between brands too. Strength Level keeps a separate table for the horizontal leg press, from 945,397 lifts. There, the intermediate man at 80 kg presses 175 kg and the woman at 60 kg 107 kg.

So your numbers compare best on the same machine, counted the same way each time.

Trackist leaves the leg press out of its strength standards, because the sled lets you move far more than any squat. So this page has no table of its own.

Under 18? These tables are for adults, and they set no target for teenagers. For a young lifter, full, controlled reps and slow, steady progress matter more than any number on them.

Find your leg press max

You do not need to test a true one-rep max on the leg press. Type a set you did, and the calculator estimates your max with 7 formulas. Sets of 10 reps or fewer give the closest estimate.

On a machine, use the number to compare your own sets over time. A max from one sled will not match another sled or your squat. Keep your seat, feet and depth the same, and count the sled the same way. For more detail, open the 1RM calculator.

Leg press safety: depth, knees and the sled

You sit, nothing rests on your spine, and the safety stops can catch the sled. Four habits keep it that way. We found no study that measured injuries or the lower back on the leg press, so these are coaching habits and mechanics.

Depth and your lower back. Lower the sled far enough, and your hips roll up off the seat and your lower back rounds off the pad. Stop just before that point, and check it on your working sets, not only your warm-ups.

Locking your knees. Stop each rep with a slight bend at the top, so the muscles hold the sled, not the joint.

The safety stops. Set them just below your lowest point. If a rep fails, lower the sled onto them and slide out. Turn the safety handles back in after your last rep, before you relax your legs.

Getting in and out. Load and unload the plates evenly on both sides. Keep your hands off the rails while the sled moves, and take the plates off when you finish.

When the leg press hurts

Pain is a reason to change something, not to push through. Diagnosis and treatment belong to a physiotherapist or a doctor.

• Front of the knee: stop a little higher and try a slightly wider stance. In the study of 10 lifters, knee forces rose as the knee bent further and were higher with a narrow stance. The authors suggested the first 50 degrees of knee bend for people who need to keep knee forces low.
• Lower back: stop higher, before your hips roll off the seat, and keep your back flat against the pad. If it still hurts, try a one-leg press with less weight.
• A pinch at the front of the hip at the bottom: set your feet a little wider, turn your toes out a little and stop higher.
• A sudden sharp pain, a pop or a knee that gives way needs a doctor soon. So does pain that runs down a leg, or numbness or weakness in a leg.

In the same 10 lifters, at their 12-rep max, the squat generally put more force through the knee joint and kneecap than the leg press.

For lasting pain, read what to do when a lift hurts.

Leg press variations and alternatives

In Trackist's exercise library, the leg press sits in one group with 11 squat movements: the goblet squat, the barbell back squat, the front squat, the hack squat, the Smith machine squat, the bodyweight squat, the bodyweight box squat, the wall sit, the paused back squat, the belt squat and the pendulum squat. The app's leg press page lists them as similar movements. When you swap the leg press for one session or for the rest of your plan, the picker puts that group first, then other quad exercises, starting with those your equipment and joints allow.

How Trackist runs your leg press

Trackist is an AI personal trainer for the gym. It writes your plan, and the leg press gets this from the app:

• From your second session of the leg press, Trackist suggests what to try from the last time you logged it. When every set at your top weight reached the top of the rep range, it adds 5 kg (10 lb). Inside the range, it keeps the weight and asks for more reps. There is no suggestion in a deload week.
• When you fall short of the reps, it keeps the weight, takes about 5% off or leaves the call to you, depending on how far short you fell and how hard the sets felt.
• From your second session, it logs a personal record when you beat your heaviest weight, your most reps at a weight or your best estimated max.
• The exercise page shows 4 form cues, the muscles worked and the joints the leg press loads: the knee, the lower back and the hip. From your second session, it adds a chart of your estimated one-rep max.
• When your knee hurts on the leg press, you report it and rate it from 1 to 5. Trackist swaps the leg press for another quad exercise, such as the leg extension. Your profile remembers it, so later plans leave out squats, lunges, step-ups and Bulgarian split squats, and keep your hinges and leg curls.
• When your hip hurts on it, Trackist swaps it for a squat that spares the hip, such as the belt squat or the pendulum squat. Later plans leave out the squats that load the hip, the leg press included. Walking and reverse lunges, step-ups and hinges stay.
• When your lower back hurts on it, Trackist swaps it for a squat that spares the lower back, such as the hack squat, the belt squat or the goblet squat. Later plans leave out barbell squats, the overhead press, back extensions and carries. Deadlifts and other hinges stay.
• The leg press does not count towards your Strength Score. The sled runs on rails, so its kilograms run far past any squat, and Trackist leaves it out of the score.