Muscle Ventures Podcasts

In this podcast (Quicktime, 42 MB; Google Video, no download), Nancy Arnold and I (Bud) review four different leg press machines available at Liberty Athletic Club, the gym where we normally workout. The review was based on a request from Scott Bird, who was either going to purchase a leg press or build one. Scott sent several question in email, and we try to answer them in this podcast for each of the machines.

We also tried to address the general question of why you would use a press instead of doing an exercise like the squat or the lunge. In a word, the leg press removes the elements of balance and stabiliztion required for those two exercises, allowing you to focus solely on building the muscle. It's a good option for general conditioning and when you feel like you just don't have the mental concentration to do the more difficult movements but still want to work the muscles.

We covered the machines in the order they appear in the strip on the left. Here are the highlights for each.

Paramount Leg Press

The paramount is one of the most used Leg presses at Liberty, and you find similarly designed presses in most gyms. It is mounted on an incline of 45 degrees and plate loaded. We figure the platform by itself weighs 40 to 50 lbs. The seat tilts through a range of 15 degrees so you can vary the angle the press hits your muscles.

One reason this press is popular is that it is pretty simple to operate. You hop in the seat put your feet on the platform, release the platform catches and let gravity and your muscles do the rest. No need to specify how close your body should come to the platform or anything else.

This leg press also provides a good range of motion. Range of motion is important for working all of the leg muscles. The closer you bring your legs to your body during the negative part of the movement, the more you will work your gluteals during the contraction phase. Once you get about half way up, the emphasis switches to your quadriceps.

The platform on the press is wide enough to allow a variety of foot positions ranging from feet together to a wide "sumo" stance (feet beyond shoulder width and angled out at 45 degrees). This variety Allows you to move the exercise emphasis from outer to inner thighs.

Hammerstrength Leg Press

Looking at the second photo, you can see that the Hammerstrength leg press is quite different from the paramount press. First the incline of the seat is on the order of 35 degrees (not 12 to 15 as we say in the podcast), and the range of motion is set by explicitly adjusting the seat forward or backward. The manufacturer states that this is one of their top ten selling products.

In my experience, this press works the quads and the lower quads in particular. Nancy gets more impact in the gluteals. I think this is largely because she sets the set for a much longer range of motion. My hips simply do not flex that much.

This is another plate loaded press. However instead of pushing the weight up an incline as you do with the paramount, you are pushing against a lever mechanism. I find I can do about three quarters the weight on the Hammer as I can on the paramount.

we normally place our feet shoulder width apart with this machine and tend to do few if any variations in foot placement.

Nautilus Nitro Leg Press

Pictured third from the top, the Nautilus Nitro Leg Press is very popular in gyms. Like the Hammerstrength, you adjust the seat explicitly to get range of motion, and you can get the seat so close that you are almost sitting on the foot platform. While the platform is not as wide as the Paramount, we use both shoulder width and sumo stances.

The machine has a few unique features. First, like all Nautilus machines, it works on a pulley system with a cam that is intended to keep resistance even throughout the range of motion. Second the seat tilts back up to 45 degrees. Nancy finds that claim of even resistance is only partially true. She also feels the incline on the chair has no effect. With my tighter hips, I find leaning the seat back allows me to move the seat closer to the platform getting a longer range of motion.

Cybex Leg Press

The Cybex at Liberty is an old pulley driven machine where you lie on a bed and push your legs against a stable platform to raise the weight. In some ways, it mimics a squat. You adjust the range of motion by setting the position of the bed relative to the foot platform. Extremely long ranges of motion are possible. The foot platform on this machine is rather wide, and we use the same variety of foot stances as we do on the Paramount. We also frequently do single leg presses on this machine. The nice thing about this machine for single leg presses is that if your leg fails during the press, the consequences are not too great, the bed just stops at the rest position.

We will continue this series in our exercise analysis section when we look at specific leg exercises on each machine.

Additional Links

• Range of motion is what it is all about in training your legs. This article provides a good overview of things you can do to increase your range of motion.