A leg press is an exercise that predominantly targets the quads using the machine. The exercise further target the glutes. It is a great exercise that focuses on the lower body. One of the important things is that this exercise places no load on the spine. Consequently, it has no stabilization requirement. In the current scenario of a pandemic or who might not have access to the leg press machine in your gym, the question here is, what are leg press alternatives? Can one obtain all the benefits of leg press exercises without having a leg press machine?
The answers to these questions are: yes, there are leg press alternatives. You can do these exercises at home without any machine. etc. As you will see we have selected the 20 best leg press alternatives that you can do at home. These include V-Squats, Hack Squat, Sissy Squat, Bulgarian Split Squat, Resistance Band Squat, Belt Squat, Back Squat, Front Squat, and Safety Bar Squat, etc. These leg press alternative at-home exercises help you target each muscle in your lower body. Therefore, they are excellent for everything – size, strength, and power.
What Makes a Good Leg Press Alternative?
The leg press as a resistance training exercise is excellent to make your legs strong. It is done against your weights by pushing your legs. Like every strength-building exercise, leg presses are useful in building muscles, reducing the risk of injury, and especially counteracting age-related muscles loss. Building leg strength through explosive movements, like leapfrog jumps or broad jumps. These movements combine squat and give full extension to the lower part of the body, thus making a great press leg alternative. Similarly, if you have joint pain, then better to do broad jumps with great care. This is because the high impact might hurt your joints.
Muscles Used in the Leg Press
The leg press exercises, which just involve movements of legs, mostly work on the muscles, i.e., hamstring, quadriceps, calves, hips, and gluteus maximus. Both leg presses and squats work and focus on the quadriceps. However, they also work on the hamstring, i.e., the muscles opposite to quads lie back on your thighs, and similarly glutes, i.e., muscles in buttocks. Leg lifting helps in various muscles simultaneously, which makes it a wise choice for having efficient workouts. While keeping in mind that the leg press could be safer than other exercises such as squat because you could not get trapped under heavyweights.
Leg Press: Reduced Spinal Loading
The leg press exercises allow weight lifters and coaches to reduce the load on the spine and still train the lower body. This could be beneficial for players/athletes to recover from injury or to limit the additional stress by increasing lower body exercises/training. Power athletes know the power of squat training. Leg pressing is not any substitution but is a useful exercise for getting additional strength without adding additional strain on the spine, lower back, and central nervous system.
Leg Press Alternatives
The leg press exercises have a lot of advantages, but it has many risks/limitations of not doing properly. Simply, it means to choose the lower part of the body for training to gain strength and fitness goals. In a seated position, the leg press is safe for the spine. It can also target the largest muscles in the body to burn the maximum amount of energy. The bodyweight leg press alternative is the weight of your own body and substantial space to move. If the bodyweight leg press alternative is too easy to perform, adding weight or using a resistance band is useful for incorporation.
Back Squat
To perform the back squat, the bar is loaded at the top of your traps near the base of the neck. After this, you need to simply squat down, meaning bending at your knees and hips, but to keep your knees not far from the front of your feet. From here, you need to squat down, similar to what you do in back squats. The back squat needs the structure of the lower part of your body and core to work synergistically. Having an optimal performance requires multiple motions at the knees, hips, and ankles.
Hack Squat
The hack squat requires standing on the plate, meaning laying back onto the pads at an angle, while the weight on top of yourself, by positioning your body under the shoulder pads. After this, the weight is pushed in the concentric phase of the squat. The leg press is an outstanding alternative to the hack squat because there is no spinal compression and focuses on main group muscles. In short, the hack squat work entirely on the lower body.
Front Squat
The front squat is also a lower body exercise that main focus is to strengthen your hips and legs, especially your quads, i.e., thigh muscles and glutes, meaning butt muscles. The front squats are similar to the back squats, but the barbell is placed on the shoulders’ front side instead of the upper back. Doing this will shift the center to the forward position, allowing a more upright posture that makes it spine-friendly. It also shifts the work focus from glutes to your quads, making it effective for quad strength.
Dumbbell Walking Lunges
To perform dumbbell walking lunges, hold one dumbbell in each of your hands and keep your arms straight on your side, and then keep your torso upright. Now keep your arms in a relaxed mode throughout the whole movement. Next, step forward by using your right leg and putting your weight on your heel. The body becomes stabilized when the right foot strikes the floor. Finally, repeat the same movement with your left leg, respectively.
Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squats
The dream of getting stronger legs becomes fast by exercising incorporating Bulgarian split squats into your gym routine. The exercise is good, especially for your lower body. Putting one leg behind and elevating it off the ground targets many of the same muscles simultaneously as any normal squat, but with a great emphasis on your quads. This is a single-leg exercise at each time but can be done alternatively.
Bulgarian Split Squat
The split Bulgarian squat is a compound-led exercise with a special focus on the lower body, i.e., hamstrings, hip flexors, quadriceps, and glutes. With properly doing, split squats could increase the leg strength by enhancing flexibility. While performing the single-leg squat, you are stabilizing the leg which comes out in front of you. However, in the Bulgarian split squat, you stabilize the leg, which you put on an elevated surface behind you. Similarly, the Bulgarian split squat further allows you to reach in more depth than a single-leg squat, consequently requiring flexibility in the hips.
Belt Squat
Squatting oneself is a natural human movement. Therefore, rack some weight on the back and make/force the muscles to perform squats and get stronger. An important benefit of doing a belt squat is allowing an athlete to load his lower body without putting pressure or loading on the spine. Belt squats might be another suitable alternative to back squats, but avoid stressing/loading your lower back or trunk musculature.
Barbell Step-Ups
In general, step-ups hit and focus all the major muscle groups in the lower part of the body. The quads would bear the brunt of actions, but this move works on your glutes, calves, and hamstrings too. The stepper-uppers could increase the challenge by holding the barbell on your back, i.e., shoulders, while making a move. Other than the barbell, the rest of the form is the same. However, weighting the back of the shoulders makes it quite harder to move/drive up on your front leg.
Barbell Hip Thrusters
The hip thrust is an ideal/perfect exercise for the lower part of the body. It gives strength to muscles in the hip, quadriceps, and buttocks, respectively. It also helps to stabilize the lower back, knees, and pelvis. Hence, it makes it perfect for focusing/targeting your lower bone density in the hips and femur bones, aligning your knee joints, and finally promoting strong glutes with a better balance.
Barbell Front Squats
The barbell front squats mainly focus or target your quadriceps, glutes, hips, and hamstrings. Furthermore, this also works the erector, i.e., spinal group of muscles which almost extend to the entire/whole length of the spine and, to some extent, to the rectus abdominus. In general, squats could improve athletic performance and can build strength in healthy young adults. This exercise has also shown benefits in older people trying to preserve physical strength and lung capacity. If anyone’s primary goal is to improve/enhance quad strength, then for sure, the front barbell squat is more effective and efficient than the back barbell squat. Furthermore, keeping the weight forward to you could decrease the effect/involvement of the hamstrings, which put pressure on the quads to do more work.
Resistance Band Broad Jumps
In well-rounded athletes, power and deceleration are important and integral training principles to keep itself on constantly fine-tune. Therefore, both the foot speed and acceleration are final products of power, as the ability to pivot, stop on a dime, and/or shift directions all have attributed to deceleration. Consequently, the resisted broad jumps have the sole quality of enhancing/heightening both the power and deceleration. Anchor the resistance band around your hip waist height to fix the stationary object, which will not move or shift, and hence, place the band around your waist. Now walk out till the band is taut but certainly not stretched. Further, spread your feet apart similar to a hip-width distance apart. Now, raise both of your arms above your head and swing them together downwards in a vigorous motion for initializing the movement.
Resistance Band Leg Press
In the resistance band leg press, bend both knees, and create a 90-degree angle. Afterward, flex your feet by pointing your toes towards the roof/ceiling by wrapping the band around your feet and holding it until it ends. Put your feet side by side. Finally, press both of your feet against the resistance bands until your legs are completely straight. The exercise is a great alternative to squads and beginners who want to train their muscles in the lower part of their body. In short, a good exercise to get started with lower body training. Normally, leg presses could be done only in gyms by using a machine for it. But the resistance bands change it, and therefore anyone is capable of doing leg pressing at home.
Resistance Band Squat
For performing resistance band squat, stand on the resistance band with feet until shoulder, so that the band is feet-shoulder apart. Now, hold the handles next to your shoulders so that the band is behind the back of your arms. Sit down slowly and move back into a squat position by keeping your abdominals tight while the chest is lifted. Finally, press back up through your heels and squeeze glutes.
Safety Bar Squat
Lower body strength is the major key performance indicator (KPI) in nearly all competitions/programs. Therefore, using a safety squat bar exercise is better leg training and is worthwhile to endeavor. The safety bar squats could be an excellent exercise or tool to use within your workout/training because it allows shoulder mobility as a non-factor in the squat. While it naturally creates a better pelvic position or orientation and also bracing mechanics in most lifters. It could be used to target or resolve weaknesses in the squat, for instance, the chest fall pattern.
Single-Leg Dumbbell Step-Ups
The single-leg dumbbell step up is an excellent single-leg exercise that strengthens the entire lower part of your body. This great exercise trains an athlete for immense strength, control, stability. All of these important attributes/qualities are essential for basketball players. To perform this exercise, place the entire foot on the box. You can think of pushing the entire foot through the box. Now, fully extend your leg that is placed on the box while at the same time flexing the opposite hip. Furthermore, hold the top position for a two count and should stay tall through each repetition.
Sissy Squat
In general, squats are such an effective and efficient compound of exercise that there are loads of different variations. In this regard, a sissy squat exercise targets a quadricep that focuses on leaning backward and bending from your knee to achieve the bottom of the position. The sissy squat is incredibly difficult to perform/achieve with free-standing. Therefore, it often relies on simple things that keep the feet and calves in place.
Smith Rack Squats
To perform Smith rack squats, stand in a Smith machine with your shoulder-width stance and a metallic rod/bar across your shoulders as well as traps. With keeping your chest high, put your head forward and then maintain an arch in your back. Now, bend at your knees and hips in a position as if you are sitting back on a chair to make sure that your thighs are parallel to the floor. Finally, reverse the motion by driving through heels and pressing hips forward to return to the starting position.
Toes Up Landmine Squats
To do the toes up landmine squats, place a weight plate in front of you but on the floor. Now, Face away from the landmine, and place the barbell on one of your shoulders and then place your toes on the weight plate, i.e., in front of you and on the floor, such that your heels are only on the ground. Finally, leaning back into the barbell, lower yourself down into a squat for a few seconds by bending your knees.
V-Squat
To perform a v-squat is an exercise machine exercise that primarily focuses/targets the quads but also, to a lesser degree, targets the hamstrings and glutes. The v-squat is an excellent way to mix up leg training days. Furthermore, this kind of leg movement is also good for those who want to practice by getting into a good squat before moving to the other leg exercise, such as the unassisted back squat.
Weighted Wall Sit
To perform weighted wall sit, slide down on the wall till your thighs become parallel to the floor. Furthermore, keep your feet shoulder-width apart. Now, the knees should be over your ankles in such a way that they bent to a 90-degree angle. Finally, distribute your weight evenly and then grip the floor tightly with your feet to create a stable position. Now, give rest to your upper body and keep your head against the wall.
Final Thoughts
Leg press variations have both pros and cons. So one should be careful while performing leg press at home, especially these alternatives. Always consult your trainer while doing leg press alternatives. Do not use more weight while starting a leg press workout. Some of the points mentioned here are about the resistance bands that could replace the weight of a home leg press machine. We hope this article was informative and you got to learn a thing or two about leg press alternatives. So, which leg press substitute did you find easier to do? Let us know in the comments below!
