Training Day Gym Educational Article - How to grow your legs with the leg press By Coach Chris

The Leg Press is a commonly used exercise in the gym, but do you know if you are doing it correctly for the muscles you want to grow?

First let's take a look at what people are generally trying to achieve with the Leg Press. The Leg press machine allows you to load up your legs while taking the core and upper extremities out of the movement. This leaves us with a very effective exercise to load up the legs with, without the complexity of movement that you may find in a Squat, and without the demand for stability and neuromuscular coordination. This makes it a great lower body exercise for new-comers, or a great exercise for more advanced wanting to push closer to failure without the risk of injury and technical failure. So if you haven't already gathered, the leg press is a great exercise to isolate the Legs, in particular the Quadriceps and Glutes. 

Now let’s say someone wanted to focus more on one muscle group or the other, how could you do this? Let’s look at foot stance width first. Whilst a wider toes pointed out approach may help recruit more Glute throughout the movement, and a toes straight narrow stance may allow you to recruit more Quadriceps throughout the movement, it can vary for the individual and depending on the hip socket structures and current mobility of an individual, one may be preferred over the other. For most people a stance width of around shoulder width will be comfortable (feel free to play around slightly with the width to find which feels best). As for the toe angle, again I would recommend for most, pick which one feels most natural and allows you to engage the target muscles and get the most range of motion in your leg press without letting your butt come off the pad or any rounding of the lower back to occur. (Bonus tip, don't forget to brace your core during the movement, while it may not demand as much core stability as the squat, bracing your core will provide more support to the spine and surrounding structures, while providing adequate stiffness to allow greater expression of strength).

Now lastly we have foot height. If we wanted to maximise the quads engagement with less glute engagement, then having your feet lower down on the foot pad will allow you to develop greater knee flexion and therefore more quadricep engagement. If you want to target more Glute involvement, then placing your feet higher up on the foot pad will engage the posterior chain to a greater degree by creating more of a vertical shin angle, this will engage the Glutes and hamstrings (although probably to a lesser extent). If you just want a balance of both for overall leg development, then Placing your feet somewhere in the middle will work well for you. Regardless of which variation you pick, Your Quads and Glutes will be adequately involved and both trained to a significant degree, so ultimately I suggest picking the stance that feels most natural, is pain free and allows you to progress safely.

Christos Akritidis 

Strength & Nutrition Coach | Personal Trainer

Bachelors of Exercise & Sports Science

E: chris@trainingdayhc.com.au | IG: @chrisakri