Fitness Volt
  • Bodybuilding
  • Powerlifting
  • Strongman
  • Workouts
    • Training
    • Exercise Guides
    • Workout Plans
    • Celebrity Workouts
    • Training Programs
  • Nutrition
    • Supplements
    • Diet
    • Fasting
    • Diet Plans
    • Nutrition Tips
    • Food Facts
  • Reviews
  • More
    • CrossFit
    • News
      • Arnold Classic
      • Mr. Olympia
      • Results
      • 2022 WSM
    • Fitness Calculator
    • Profiles
    • Motivation
    • Videos
    • MMA
No Result
View All Result
Fitness Volt
  • Bodybuilding
  • Powerlifting
  • Strongman
  • Workouts
    • Training
    • Exercise Guides
    • Workout Plans
    • Celebrity Workouts
    • Training Programs
  • Nutrition
    • Supplements
    • Diet
    • Fasting
    • Diet Plans
    • Nutrition Tips
    • Food Facts
  • Reviews
  • More
    • CrossFit
    • News
      • Arnold Classic
      • Mr. Olympia
      • Results
      • 2022 WSM
    • Fitness Calculator
    • Profiles
    • Motivation
    • Videos
    • MMA
No Result
View All Result
Fitness Volt
No Result
View All Result
Training
Fact Checked
Fact Checked
This article was written by one of our qualified writers, and fact-checked by our experts. The numbers in parentheses (e.g. 1, 2, 3, etc.) throughout the article, are reference links to peer-reviewed studies.
Our team of experts include a board-certified physician, nutritionists, dietitians, certified personal trainers, strength training experts, and exercise specialists.
Read Our Editorial Process

Different Leg Press Foot Placements Explained

Get the best results from your leg press workouts by putting your feet in the best position for your training goal.
Patrick Dale, PT, ex-Marine

Written by Patrick Dale, PT, ex-Marine

Last Updated onMay 11, 2022

Leg Press Foot Placements

Leg Press Foot Placements

While the squat is the reigning king of leg exercises, leg presses aren’t far behind. The great thing about leg presses is that the weight is guided and balanced, leaving you free to train your legs to failure.

This means that, for some lifters, the leg press may be a better muscle builder than squats. That’s especially true if squats bother your knees or lower back.

Of course, the leg press is much less functional than squats, lunges, deadlifts, and all those other freeweight lower body exercises. But, sometimes, when building muscle is your goal, that’s really not a bad thing. After all, leg presses are popular with bodybuilders for a reason, right?

Unfortunately, a lot of lifters fail to get the most from leg presses. It’s not that they do them incorrectly, although that is sometimes the case. Rather, it’s that they pay no attention to the position of their feet.

In the same way that narrow, regular, and wide stance squats affect your legs differently, the same is true for leg presses.

In fact, because there are more foot placement options with the leg press, it pays to know where best to put your feet to get the most from this exercise.

In this article, we explain the different foot placements you can use during your leg press workouts so you can choose the best one for your training goals.

Table of Contents
  • What Muscles do Leg Presses Work?
  • How To Perform Leg Presses
    • How to do it:
  • 5 Different Leg Press Foot Placements Explained
    • 1. Basic
    • 2. Feet High
    • 3. Feet Low
    • 4. Narrow Feet
    • 5. Wide Feet
  • How to Use This Information
  • Leg Press Foot Placements – Wrapping Up

What Muscles do Leg Presses Work?

The leg press is a compound exercise, which means it involves multiple muscles and joints working together. The main muscles trained by leg presses are:

Leg Press Muscle Worked

Quadriceps – located on the front of your thighs, the quads extend your knees. There are four quadriceps muscles: the rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, and vastus intermedius.

Hamstrings – there are three hamstring muscles: the biceps femoris, semimembranosus, and semitendinosus. These muscles work together to flex your knees and extend your hips. The hamstrings are located on the back of your thighs.

Gluteus maximus – this is the largest muscle in the human body. Located on the back of your hip, the glutes extend your hips.

Hip abductors – located on the outside of your hips and thighs, the abductors lift your legs out and away from the midline of your body. The abductors are gluteus minimus and medius, and the tensor fascia latae, or TFL for short.

Hip adductors – there are three hip adductors: longus, brevis, and magnus, which means longest, shortest, and biggest. Located on the inside of your thighs, the adductors draw your legs in toward the midline of your body.

Regardless of your foot placement, all of these muscles are worked during leg presses. However, different foot placements emphasize different muscles, so it makes sense to adjust your stance if you want to target specific parts of your legs.

How To Perform Leg Presses

Like any exercise, you’ll get more from leg presses if you do them correctly. Also, improper form could lead to serious injury. After all, with your lower back supported, it’s all too easy to lift huge weights when leg pressing. Doing them wrong, especially with heavy loads, can really mess you up!

How to do it:

  1. Sit on the leg press and slide your butt down and pressed into the bottom of the seat. Place your feet on the footplate according to your training goal (see below).
  2. Extend your legs and press the weight up. Flip the safety catches out to the side so the weight sled is free to move. Grip the support handles and brace your abs.
  3. Bend your knees and lower the weight sled as far as your flexibility and knee health allows. Do not let your lower back round. Instead, keep it pressed into the backrest.
  4. Without bouncing, drive the weight back up, stopping just short of full knee extension.
  5. That’s one rep – keep going!

Important Note: there are lots of different leg press machine manufacturers and designs. These instructions are for a standard-type leg press where the weight moves on rails. Other machines may operate differently. So, make sure you use the leg press at your gym according to any instructions provided with the machine or as directed by the gym staff.

5 Different Leg Press Foot Placements Explained

Broadly speaking, there are FIVE different foot placements you can use during leg presses. Each one allows you to emphasize a particular leg muscle or muscle group.

Leg Press Foot Placements Explained
Leg Press Foot Placements Explained

The five available foot placements are:

1. Basic

With basic stance leg presses, your feet should be parallel and roughly shoulder-width apart in the middle of the platform. This is the most common foot position and most lifters tend to adopt it naturally.

Basic stance leg presses work your glutes, hamstrings, and quadriceps pretty equally. If you want a good general leg workout, regular stance will give you what you want.

2. Feet High

This foot placement involves putting your feet higher up on the footplate. Doing this variation emphasizes your glutes and hamstrings and puts more weight through your heels.

With the bias on your posterior chain, putting your feet high on the platform takes stress off your quadriceps and knees, which may be beneficial if leg presses aggravate your joints.

However, you may not be able to lift as much weight, so this variation is not so good for building lower body strength.

3. Feet Low

Placing your feet lower on the platform puts more weight on the balls of your feet and increases quadriceps engagement. The low foot placement means this is an excellent alternative to another quad-dominant machine exercise – hack squats.

On the downside, a low foot placement increases both stress and range of motion at the knees, which could cause or aggravate knee pain. However, this is a superior quad builder.

4. Narrow Feet

With this variation, your feet are parallel and about hip-width apart in the middle of the platform. It’s a very strong position which makes this is good exercise for lifting heavier weights and building strength.

The narrow stance emphasizes your quads but is slightly more knee-friendly than the low stance described above. However, you may find that you cannot lower the weight as far as your thighs could come into contact with your stomach.

5. Wide Feet

While the actual width of your stance will depend on the size of the platform on your leg press machine, moving your feet out tends to increase glute, hamstrings, and hip abductor engagement. Ideally, your feet should be about 1.5 shoulder-widths apart, turning your toes slightly outward.

On the downside, this variation requires good hip mobility and flexibility. For example, if you’ve got tight inner thighs, it could be uncomfortable or even cause injury, especially if you descend too far.

How to Use This Information

A lot of lifters use the leg press without thinking much about the position of their feet. They just adopt the foot placement that feels comfortable and natural, which is usually the basic/regular stance.

Bodybuilder Doing A Seated Leg Press Exercise

But, as you can emphasize specific parts of your legs by moving your feet, it makes sense to adopt that stance that works the parts of your legs you want to develop.

So, if you want to build your quads, use a narrower stance or place your feet lower on the platform.

Alternatively, if you want to emphasize your glutes and hamstrings, move your feet up on the platform and push through your heels.

Want to hit your hips and inner thighs a little more? Adopt a wider stance.

Of course, it’s important to remember that whatever your stance is, you’ll still be working all your major leg muscles. However, you should feel certain muscles working differently according to where you place your feet.  

If you can’t decide which part of your legs you want to work, you could always move your feet set by set to train them all, for example:

  • 1stset – wide stance
  • 2ndset – narrow stance
  • 3rdset – feet high
  • 4thset – feet low
  • 5thset – regular stance

This will provide an effective and more interesting leg workout than doing set after set with the same foot placement.

Looking for even more leg press variety? Check out: 11 New Ways to Use the Leg Press Machine

Leg Press Foot Placements – Wrapping Up

A lot of training experts are quick to dismiss the leg press because it’s not as functional as squats, deadlifts, and lunges.

While this statement is undeniably true, it’s also worth remembering that functional means different things to different people. After all, if you are a bodybuilder, you want exercises that maximize hypertrophy – and that’s the main function of the leg press.

Squats really do deserve the title of king of exercises, but that doesn’t mean the leg press can’t be valuable, too. In fact, you may find that leg presses have a few advantages that squats do not share, especially if you like to train alone or work to failure.

So, squat hard and heavy, but make your leg workouts even more productive with leg presses, remembering to use the foot placement that best matches your goals.

Stay on top of the latest fitness news and updates by adding Fitness Volt to your Google News feed: Follow us on Google News You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for even more content.
Facebook Twitter Reddit Flipboard LinkedIn
Categories: Training Training Exercises
Previous Post

Luke Stoltman — Complete Profile, Workout, and Diet Program

Next Post

Powerlifter Julius Maddox Hits Huge Raw Bench Press PR Of 361-Kg (796-lb) In Training

Patrick Dale, PT, ex-Marine

Patrick Dale, PT, ex-Marine

Patrick Dale is an ex-British Royal Marine, gym owner, and fitness qualifications tutor and assessor. In addition, Patrick is a freelance writer who has authored three fitness and exercise books, dozens of e-books, thousands of articles, and several fitness videos. He’s not just an armchair fitness expert; Patrick practices what he preaches! He has competed at a high level in numerous sports, including rugby, triathlon, rock climbing, trampolining, powerlifting, and, most recently, stand up paddleboarding. When not lecturing, training, researching, or writing, Patrick is busy enjoying the sunny climate of Cyprus, where he has lived for the last 20-years.

Related

Hunter Labrada Off-season Leg Workout

Hunter Labrada Crushes a Massive Off-Season Leg Workout

Hunter Labrada is busy improving his physique to reclaim his place among the most elite contenders. Labrada is an American professional...

Derek Lunsford Off Season Quads Workout

Derek Lunsford Annihilates An Off-Season Leg Workout For Building Bigger Quads Sweeps

Bodybuilder Derek Lunsford is ramping up his off-season training to get bigger and better. Lunsford is an American professional bodybuilder that competes...

Jeff Nippard Leg Day Workout

Jeff Nippard Shares ‘Ultimate’ Leg Day Workout To Unlock Gains

Fitness YouTuber Jeff Nippard recently shared the third installment of the six-part push, pull, leg series. Nippard is a Canadian...

Mitchell Hooper

Strongman Mitchell Hooper Crushes 770-kg (1,697.6-lb) Raw Leg Press For 8 Reps Ahead of 2023 Arnold Strongman Classic

As a young prospect in the world of strongman, Mitchell Hooper is currently eager to present himself in the best...

Hack Squat vs. Leg Press

Hack Squat vs. Leg Press: Which Exercise is Safer for Your Knees and Offers the Most Benefits?

Many people start lifting because of body-image issues and a lack of self-confidence. Legs are a touchy-feely subject for most...

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest

Can You Drink Coffee While Intermittent Fasting?

B-Stance RDL Guide: Muscles Worked, How-To, Benefits, and Alternatives

Dorian Yates on Optimizing Health with Hormones and Being Fit at 60: ‘I’m 235 Lbs Very Lean & Muscular’ 

Bikini Bodybuilding Legend Ashley Kaltwasser Shares Useful Contest Prep Tips

UFC Superstar Michael Chandler Shares Diet & Training Routine

Shaun Clarida Plans to Break Flex Lewis 212 Olympia Record, Says Nick Walker’s ‘Streamlined’ Look Cost Him

Reviews

Best Preacher Curl Benches

10 Best Preacher Curl Benches in 2023 (Review & Ranked)

Ancheer Treadmills Review

6 Best Ancheer Treadmills in 2023 (Review & Ranked)

Best Bone Broth Supplements

10 Best Bone Broth Supplements of 2023 (Reviewed & Ranked)

Fitness Volt

At FitnessVolt.com Our mission is to help our readers to achieve their fitness goals, regardless of where you’re at on your journey, we are on a mission to educate You with the latest from strength and fitness space. Read more.

Email: sm(at)fitnessvolt.com

Disclosure: FitnessVolt.com has an affiliate relationship with different brands and is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. However, our reviews are based on well research backed analysis.

Follow Us

Trending Topics

  • Mr. Olympia
  • Bodybuilding
  • Strongman
  • Powerlifting
  • CrossFit
  • At Home Workouts
  • Bodyweight Exercises
  • Best Pre-workout
  • Best Fat Burners
  • Bodybuilding Diet
  • Bicep Workouts
  • Triceps Workouts
  • Chest Exercises
  • Back Workouts
  • Leg Workouts
  • Front Squat Guide
  • Calf Workouts & Exercises
  • Forgotten Exercises
  • Jefferson Deadlift

Calculators

  • Calorie Burning Calculators
  • IF Calculator
  • TDEE Calculator
  • Calorie Calculator
  • Keto Calculator
  • RMR Calculator
  • Macronutrient Calculator
  • Creatine Calculator
  • Wilks Calculator
  • EER Calculator
  • FFMI Calculator
  • IBW Calculator
  • LBM Calculator
  • Fat Intake Calculator
  • Calories Burned Swimming
  • Calories Per Meal Calculator

  • Food Nutrition Analysis
  • Carb Cycling Calculator
  • Weight Gain Calculator
  • Weight Loss Calculator
  • Calories Burned Calculator
  • Strength Standards
  • One Rep Max Calculator
  • Body Fat Calculator
  • EER Calculator
  • Weight Loss Percentage
  • Treadmill Calorie Calculator
  • Body Surface Area Calculator
  • Running Pace Calculator
  • Bench Press Calculator
  • Protein Calculator
  • Water Intake Calculator
  • Body Type Quiz
  • Steps to Miles Calculator
  • Calorie Deficit Calculator
  • Home
  • About
  • Jobs
  • Accessibility
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Syndication
  • Sitemap
  • DMCA
  • Copyrights
  • Terms
  • Privacy

© Copyright 2010 - 2023 Fitness Volt IBC. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Bodybuilding
  • Arnold Classic
  • Powerlifting
  • Strongman
  • CrossFit
  • Workouts
  • Exercise Guides
    • Arms
    • Back
    • Chest
    • Core
    • Legs and Glutes
    • Shoulders
  • Training
  • Nutrition
  • Reviews
  • More
    • News
    • Mr. Olympia
    • 2022 WSM
    • Diet
    • Motivation
    • Videos
    • Food Facts
    • Fitness Calculator

© Copyright 2010 - 2023 Fitness Volt IBC. All Rights Reserved.