🔥LEG PRESS FOR LEG DEVELOPMENT

💥 The leg press is a great accessory exercise in a leg day routine. It has been shown to result in similar muscle gain in a 10-week study comparing it to squats. However, it may not lead to similar performance adaptations further research is needed.
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The leg press is a great glute and quad exercises, one common thought with it is that changing foot position will affect muscle activation. Looking at a study that observed muscle activation during different foot positions, neutral, internally rotated, externally rotated. The results showed that there was no statistical difference in muscle activation in the quads based on their evidence.

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🚨 This study has a few limitations and improvements that can be done with this study to further refine the results. One strong limitation is the weight they used which was only 55% of their body weight, whether that has the same activation as a higher percent of their actual 1RM isn’t know. However perhaps we may see trends like the leg extension where internal rotation limits the rectus femoris and favors the vastus muscles.
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Another thing to add is that it is common misconception that the leg press engages your hamstring in a manner which they perform work. Many popular websites and books even recommended as a hamstring exercise. However, that is not true it is as much a hamstring exercise as are leg extensions. Which was shown by (Kevin E. et al.) Looked at the emg activity of lower limb muscles during different exercise. What they found was that the activation of the hamstrings was not statically different during the ascent between leg extensions and leg press. This is because of the mechanics of the leg press and the hamstrings crossing both the knee and hip joint.