Leg press

The leg press is where you can go heavy without your midsection being the limit. Your back is supported, and you can keep adding weight long after your squat has stalled.

That advantage is also what makes it dangerous: the machine will let you load more than your joints are happy with, and the only thing stopping you is you.

Sets, reps and RIR

Machines and cables hold the path for you, so you can work closer to failure than with free weights.

RIR means reps in reserve: how many you could still have done when you racked it. RIR 2 is two short of failure.

How to do it

1. Set your feet about shoulder width in the middle of the platform, toes turned out slightly.
2. Press your glutes and lower back flat into the backrest before releasing the safeties.
3. Lower until the knees are around ninety degrees, or as far as your lower back stays down.
4. Keep the knees tracking over the toes rather than caving in.
5. Press through the whole foot, heels in contact with the platform throughout.
6. Extend without locking the knees out hard. The next rep starts with tension in the legs.

Common mistakes

Lower back lifting at the bottom

Go deeper than your hips allow and the pelvis rolls, taking your lower back off the pad. That is where leg press back injuries happen. Stop where the back stays down.

Knees caving in

Most common on the last few reps. Push the knees out towards the toes, or widen the stance slightly.

Heels lifting off the platform

You are pressing off the forefoot and putting everything through the knees. Move your feet a little higher up the platform.

Locking out hard at the top

Slamming into full extension with hundreds of kilos above you is risk without reward. Stop just short.

How it differs from the neighbouring variants

The squat asks more of your technique and your brace, and gives more back for it. The leg press lets you train legs hard when your back is still tired from deadlifts, or when you train alone without safety arms.

The hack squat sits between the two: a fixed path like the press, but you stand, so the midsection does some work. The Bulgarian split squat hits many of the same muscles at a fraction of the load, and is the best alternative when your knees dislike a heavy press.

What it suits

The leg press works as the main lift on a leg day if you are not squatting, or as the second lift after it. Foot placement decides what you hit: high on the platform gives more glutes and hamstrings, low gives more quads.

Muscles worked

Primary: Quads, Glutes.

Secondary: Adductors, Abductors.

Estimate your one-rep max

Epley's formula, from a set you have actually done. It is an estimate, and it drifts above eight reps, so keep the input between one and twelve.

What it is called elsewhere

• Norsk Beinpress
• Svenska Benpress
• Dansk Benpres
• Deutsch Beinpresse
• Español Prensa de piernas
• Italiano Leg press
• Português Leg press
• Русский Жим ногами
• Français Presse à cuisses

Related legs exercises

• Squat (barbell)
• Front squat
• Box squat
• Lunges (barbell)
• Hip thrust (barbell)
• Good morning

athlate logs this exercise, keeps the numbers, and tells you what you lifted last time.