A guide to seated leg press: everything you need to know

Posted by Amos Fred on March 13th, 2021

Have you ever wanted stronger, more defined legs or a tiger butt? Chances are you have. Other than looking to lose weight, you may work out to have a great body. While there are numerous exercises to help you chisel your upper body, the seated leg press is one of the easiest and most exciting ways to train your legs at the gym. Because it doesn’t take a lot of time and it’s easy to do, the leg press is quite coveted at the gym. Here’s all you should know about the leg press. 

What is a leg press?

A leg press is a workout that has you push some weight away from your body using your legs. This exercise targets the glutes and quad and is often performed on a leg press machine. It’s a good way to improve your lower body strength and develop explosive strength because you need to push hard to move the weight. A leg press is performed while seated in an upright position, but there are different variations, such as the vertical leg press that has you pushing the weight up rather than forward. 

Why use a leg press?

Leg presses engage your whole lower body, requiring great exertion from your glutes and quads. This makes it a great way to warm these muscles and your whole body up. They also help strengthen and tone your legs. Regularly hitting the leg press will help you develop a stronger base, thus maintaining better posture when performing other exercises such as weighted squats or deadlifts.   

Leg presses allow you to build well-rounded legs without relying on barbell squats. While most people think of squats as the king of all exercises, they require some expertise to perform them safely, and beginners can have a hard time with them. Most people won’t take the time to learn how to do barbell squats properly to develop their leg muscles; they are looking for the most direct thing to do to get toned legs with the smallest risk of injury. 

How to use a leg press

As with most gym equipment, a leg press machine can look intimidating the first time around, but using it is a lot easier than you think. Start by adding the weight plates to either side of the machine. You can increase or decrease the weights as you want, depending on how strenuous they feel during your first reps. 

Sit and put your feet on the footplate, shoulder-width apart. Slowly extend your legs and push your feet into the footplate so you can unlock the safety latch on the side of the seat with your hands. Once the safety latch is free, bend your knees and move the footplate closer to you.

When your knee makes a 90-degree angle or less depending on how much you want to fold your knees, push the footplate back by stretching out your knees. This will engage your quads, hamstrings, and glutes. 

This counts as a single rep. Do as many reps as you want; however, be careful not to lock your knees as you extend your legs out. This can cause knee injuries, which are notoriously hard to recover from. Protect your knees by stretching your legs out as far as you can without locking your knees. 

There is no learning curve when it comes to the leg press. You simply load some weights onto the machine, unlock them and start working out. Don’t forget to take 1 to 2-minute breaks in between reps to help you recover. That’s all you should know about the seated leg press.