Calories Burned Doing Leg Press and It's Benefits

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With good reason, the leg press has proven to be one of the most-loved and most-used pieces of gym equipment in recent years. The machine is highly effective at building leg muscles, as well as increasing tonification. For those reasons and more, there's a lot of value in making it part of your all-around fitness program.

In this blog, we're going to dive a little deeper into the world of the leg press and take a look at how many calories you can expect to burn, the correct way to use the machine, and the many benefits that it can bring.

How Many Calories Will You Burn Doing Leg Press?


There's no single answer to the calories burned leg press question. The answer, as with many things, is that it all depends on several key factors. The biggest influencing factors are the person's weight load and how much time they're exercising.

Let's look at some examples of how many calories a leg press can burn.

A 125-pound person would burn 90 calories after thirty minutes of exercise.
A 155-pound person would burn 112 calories.
A 185-pound person would burn 133 calories.

Of course, it's highly unlikely that you'll spend thirty minutes doing leg presses. You'll probably only be doing the exercise for a few minutes. In that case, the number of calories you lose will be in the 10 - 20 calories region.

That doesn't sound like a lot of calories, and it's not, especially when compared to other exercises. However, when combined with other exercises, those calories burned quickly add up. And at the same time, you'll get to enjoy the real benefit of using leg press machines: building stronger legs.

Leg Press: Correct Form


As with all exercises, it's important that you're doing the leg press correctly. In fact, it's arguably more important because the risk of an injury is higher, and it's possible to injure the back, which can be difficult to recover from.

Here's a step-by-step guide to doing it correctly.


Make sure your back and head are comfortably resting on the padded seat support.
Place both your feet on the footplate, in line with your hips.
Tense your abdominal muscles and push the footplate away from your body.
Hold at the top of the movement, with your knees still bent.
Return to the beginning position.
For more info, you can check out this video.

Some more tips:

  • Keep the weight low if it's your first time using the leg press.
  • Be sure to keep your hands on the assist handles at the side.
  • Keep Your head flat against the padded support. If your head is moving forward, your form is incorrect.

Leg Press Benefits


  • Your legs do all the work. It can be difficult to build leg muscles, but the leg press makes it easy.
  • An outstanding way to improve leg power.
  • Coming back from an injury? The leg press can help since it's a balance-free exercise.
  • Not everyone has a gym buddy to spot them. With a leg press, it's just you and the machine.

Leg Press: Muscles Worked


In a nutshell: all your leg muscles! The quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves will all receive a workout.

Wrapping Up


And there we have it! Make the leg press part of your gym workout, and it won't be long before you notice an improvement in your legs.

exercise | strength training | leg workouts

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