The seated leg press exercise is a great exercise to strengthen your legs working out primarily your quadriceps (quads) and hamstring muscles as well as your calves and the glutes. It has been around forever in gyms. It is a very safe and effective exercise for your legs. Perfect for strengthening your legs before doing other exercises like the deadlift exercise or the barbell squat or for strengthening the legs for outdoor activities like rollerblading.
The best machine for this exercise is the HammerStrength leg press machine like the one in the photo but any machine will do. Although some gyms will have different leg press machines with different seated angles. You can try any of them and pick which one you like best or works out best for you.
Method of performance:
- Place your feet about approximately in the middle of the placement area, about shoulder width apart or in whichever position you feel the most comfortable with.
- I like to keep my feet straight (in line with the knees) because that is how we walk naturally. Some people will angle them a little outward, but always make sure your knees are parallel with your feet.
- Bring the quads and the knees as far down to your chest as you feel comfortable. You may not feel comfortable bringing your legs and knees too close to your chest and that is ok. The further down to your chest that you bring your legs, the greater the workout on your quads and hamstrings.
- Press or push the weight back to the starting position with a slight bend of the knees at the top.
- Do about 10-12 reps, 4-5 sets
- I like to do a light warm-up set for my first set.
- The slower you do the leg presses, the better.
- Breathe out as you press up, breathe in as you bring the legs to your body.
Here is a video that I filmed to show how to basically do this exercise:
