Which Is Better: Leg Presses or Squats? | Men’s Health Muscle

Men'sHealth

06/08/2024

Transcript

00:00If you take a poll among gym bros about leg exercises that can pack serious size onto

00:04your quads, glutes, and hamstrings, you're likely going to wind up with two options.

00:09The squat and the leg press.

00:11And for good reason too.

00:13Both of these exercises are going to let you lift heavy and hard and they're going to challenge

00:16all your leg muscles.

00:18But which one of these is the true king of total leg development?

00:22Truth is they both have a different place and purpose in your training.

00:25And understanding how they're the same and how they're different as well is the key to

00:30knowing when to use one of these leg blasting moves or the other.

00:33So before we start comparing the two moves, let's understand what they are first.

00:38At a base level, a squat is a leg exercise that has you starting standing up, holding

00:43a load with your upper body.

00:45Then, while aiming to stay relatively upright through your torso, you're going to push your

00:49butt back a little bit and you're going to bend at the knees, lowering your torso until

00:53your thighs are near or below parallel to the ground.

00:56This is a knee dominant move that really challenges your quads and as you stand up, it's going

01:01to challenge your glutes a ton too.

01:02A leg press actually has plenty of similarities to a squat in that it is also a knee dominant

01:08move when done correctly.

01:09And while there are several leg press machines out there, all of them generally have something

01:14in common.

01:15They're going to push you to bend at the knee joint and challenge your quads when done correctly.

01:20That means both moves give you a chance to really grow your quads and glutes.

01:24Partly because of this, both of these exercises should be among the heaviest weight moves

01:28that you do in the gym.

01:29But that is where the similarities end.

01:33There are several key areas where these moves differ and they break down along several categories.

01:38There's systemic stress, versatility, and safety.

01:41The biggest difference between both of these lifts is systemic stress.

01:44It's all about how you fatigue your entire body.

01:47When you squat, no matter where you're loading the weight, you're asking your upper body

01:51to do serious work simply because it has to hold the weight on some level.

01:56That means you'll have to brace really hard through your upper body and you have no margin

02:00for error in terms of losing total body tension.

02:02It also means you're training smaller stabilizing muscles in your squat that might not play

02:07a key role in a leg press such as your adductors and even your obliques and your back spinal

02:11extensors.

02:12Depending on your approach to the squat, it's entirely possible that those other muscle

02:17groups will fatigue before your quads and glutes do on any given squat set.

02:22That's very different from the leg press, which instantly takes your spine and upper

02:25body out of the equation since you're lying down.

02:28Sure, on a properly done leg press, you're going to want to brace your entire body, but

02:32you have a lot more margin for error.

02:34Instantly this means that there's less total body fatigue on each rep and that also means

02:38that you can push harder and really fatigue your quads and glutes on every single set.

02:43The second big difference between these two lifts is all about versatility.

02:47Because you're on the sled on the leg press and because your spine is largely out of play,

02:51you can play with different foot positions and angles on the leg press that you can't

02:55really on the squat.

02:56Those positions don't play so well with the squat because we need to make sure that we

03:00stay balanced and in control at all times.

03:03That means we can hit slightly different muscle groups if we want during a leg press and we

03:07can focus on different things.

03:08We can even focus on our glutes and hamstrings if we want to when we're doing a leg press.

03:13We can't easily adapt the squat the same way.

03:16The third major difference is overall safety.

03:19When we're working with a free weight squat, if you lose control of that load, either because

03:23of fatigue or lack of focus or anything, you're inviting injuries because you're losing control

03:28of a giant bar.

03:29You're losing control of a weight somehow and that weight's going to wind up crashing

03:32to the ground.

03:33Most leg presses, though, have a built-in safety mechanism that protects you from lowering

03:37the weight too deeply and if you lose control, it's going to keep you safe.

03:41This can limit your range of motion on some of those machines, but it also means you can't

03:45lose the weight in a way that's going to injure you.

03:47Once we take into account all of these differences, we can start to see how we can use each of

03:52these lifts differently.

03:55So when should we leg press?

03:56The leg press is at its best as a tool that lets you take your knee flexion movement pattern

04:02to max fatigue.

04:04It'll let you push past fatigue and push deep into quad burn much better than a squat.

04:09So if you're looking to push your body near total fatigue or use complex techniques like

04:13drop steps or rest-pause steps, you're best off doing it on the leg press.

04:18This also affects how we place the leg press in our workouts too.

04:21If you're training for general strength, you still want to make sure that we're hitting

04:24those total body stabilizers, so you want to keep squats and lunges in your routine.

04:28You should aim to do those exercises early though in your routine.

04:32That way you have full control and you have more focus.

04:35And when you battle that systemic fatigue, you can battle that a little bit more easily

04:39at the early part of your workout.

04:41Then when you're fatigued and you want to finish yourself off, then you can head over

04:44to the leg press for heavy, high rep sets.

04:47Don't be afraid to fail on your last press on the leg press because the machine, again,

04:52is designed to let you push to that point.

04:54Don't be afraid to program, say, three sets of 20 reps on the leg press and don't waste

04:59those reps either.

05:00Make sure that you're going heavy and really pushing to fatigue because the leg press is

05:04about pushing to true fatigue and taking yourself to the limit.

05:08Focus on the quality of reps here.

05:11So when do we go to the squat?

05:13The squat is the knee flexion movement that you go to to build general strength and power

05:17and to train your entire body to work as a unit.

05:19That means it's an exercise that you'll want to do earlier in your routine as your first

05:24or second move on leg day.

05:25And you'll want to keep the reps lower since your body is prone to fatiguing earlier than

05:29your legs.

05:30Your goal on a heavy squat is to subject your body to heavy load, not necessarily a heavy

05:35rep load.

05:36The squat also isn't the place to push the fatigue.

05:38You want to think of doing, say, three sets of eight to ten reps max or we can even go

05:43lower than that doing, say, three to five reps.

05:45Your goal here is to move weight.

05:47Your goal on the leg press is to keep things high rep.

05:50You should never do a leg press set that is three to five reps.

05:52You're just hitting a point.

05:54In the end, both of these tools actually complement each other very well and you can use them

05:59to bring out the best in your leg training over the long haul.

06:02The heavy loading and total body challenge of the squat helps to make sure that your

06:06body understands how to work well as a unit and it also teaches you the proper bracing

06:10techniques that you might be able to ignore on the leg press.

06:14So doing that for, say, four to six weeks will have overall strength benefits.

06:18Those strength benefits can carry over to another cycle where you're focusing a little

06:22bit more on leg pressing.

06:23Following with the cycle of leg presses, after a cycle of squats, give your upper body a

06:27much needed break from that squat pattern and let you hone other complex lifts like

06:32split squats, heavy lunges, and deadlifts early in your leg program.

06:36After you've done those lifts, then you can come fry your legs at the end of your routine

06:40with high rep leg press sets that focus on knee flexion and that will set a new bar for

06:45how long you can keep your quads under mechanical tension while also giving you a new threshold

06:50for your personal limits on the leg press and on a leg set.

06:54And that will eventually translate back to a stronger squat when you go back to squatting.

06:59Both of these moves, make no mistake, will help you get serious leg gains.

07:03Just make them work together and let them work together and your wheels will be on the

07:07road to serious gains.

Which Is Better: Leg Presses or Squats? | Men’s Health Muscle

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