Leg Press for Glutes: Where to Put Your Feet and How Deep to Go

To target your glutes on the leg press, put your feet high on the platform and a bit wider than shoulder-width, lower until your hips are deeply bent without your lower back peeling off the pad, and push through your heels. That setup increases how far your hips bend and how much hip extension work each rep asks for, so your glutes do a bigger share of the lift.

So, does the leg press work glutes? It does, and it can build them. But it stays a quad-dominant exercise whatever you do with your feet, and a hip thrust will still hit your glutes harder for the same effort. The useful answer is to set it up properly and use it alongside a glute-specific move, not instead of one.

Why foot position changes the work

Two things decide how much your glutes do on any lower-body lift: how far your hips bend (hip flexion range) and how much turning force the hips have to produce to straighten (hip extension torque).

When your feet sit high on the platform, your shins end up more upright and your knees bend less for any given sled depth. Your hips have to fold further instead. The resistance now acts with a longer lever around your hip joint and a shorter one around your knee, so the hip extensors (glute max and hamstrings) pick up load and the quads lose a little. Put your feet low and the opposite happens: knees travel forward past the toes, knee bend goes up, and the quads take over.

Depth matters just as much. Your glute max works hardest out of a deep hip bend, where it is stretched and has the most range to cover. Research on squats shows this clearly: in a 10-week MRI study, full squats grew the glute max by about 6.7% against 2.2% for half squats (Kubo et al., 2019). That was squatting, not leg pressing, but the same logic carries over. Shallow reps short-change your glutes.

Be realistic about how strong the evidence is. A systematic review of leg press EMG studies found the quads (vastus lateralis and medialis) produce the greatest activity on the machine, and that the evidence on how foot and body position changes muscle activity is still thin, with few studies agreeing (Martín-Fuentes et al., 2020). In one of the better-known lab studies, a wide stance with a high foot position produced more hamstring activity than a narrow high stance, while turning the toes out made no difference to muscle activity at all (Escamilla et al., 2001). The mechanics behind high feet are sound. Just don't expect foot position alone to turn a quad exercise into a glute exercise.

Leg press foot placement for glutes

Foot position	What it biases	Use it for
High on the platform	More hip bend, less knee travel. Shifts load towards glutes and hamstrings	Your main glute setup
Low on the platform	More knee bend, knees past toes. Heavily quad-focused, less glute work	Quad days, not glutes
Wide, toes out 15 to 30 degrees	Adductors (inner thighs) and glutes, with more room for the hips to fold deeply	Pair with high feet for glutes
Narrow, feet hip-width	Mostly quads; the hips run out of room sooner as thighs hit the torso	Quad emphasis
Single leg, foot high	One glute works alone through a deep range; hip stabilisers work too	Fixing side-to-side gaps, lighter loads

For most people the best "glutes" setup combines the first and third rows: heels near the top edge of the platform, feet a little wider than shoulder-width, toes turned slightly out. Your knees should track in line with your second toe all the way down. If you want to try the one-leg version, our single leg press guide covers foot placement and how to stop the sled twisting.

How to do a glute-focused leg press

1. Set the seat back. If the backrest adjusts, a slightly more reclined seat gives your hips more room to fold. Sit with your lower back and tailbone pressed into the pad.
2. Place your feet high and a bit wide. Heels close to the top edge, feet just outside shoulder-width, toes out a touch. Your whole foot stays in contact.
3. Release the safeties and lower slowly. Take 2 to 3 seconds to bring the platform down, letting your knees drift towards your armpits rather than straight into your chest.
4. Find your depth. Stop just before your hips start to tuck under and lift off the seat. That's your bottom position.
5. Drive through your heels. Push the platform away through your heels and mid-foot. Think about pushing your hips down into the seat as you press.
6. Stop short of lockout. Finish with a soft bend in the knees, then go straight into the next rep.

Tempo and loading

Glute work on the leg press comes from the bottom half of the rep, so slow it down there. A 3-second lower with a one-second pause at the bottom (keeping tension, not resting on the safeties) makes moderate weights feel heavy and stops you bouncing out of the hole.

You'll usually press less with a high, deep setup than with your normal mid-platform stance, because the range is longer and the quads have less leverage. That's expected. If you want a sense of sensible numbers for your body weight and experience, see our guide to a good leg press weight, then knock 10 to 20% off for the glute setup while you learn it.

Common mistakes

Feet too low. It feels stronger, but your knees take the load and your glutes coast. Move your heels up until they sit near the top edge.

Pressing through the toes. If your heels lift, the work shifts to your quads and calves, and your knees take more stress. Keep your heels planted; if they won't stay down at depth, move your feet higher.

Going too deep for your hips. Chasing range until your lower back rounds swaps glute work for spinal flexion under load. Depth is good only while your pelvis stays flat on the pad.

Half reps with huge weight. Stacking plates and moving the sled a few centimetres mostly trains your ego. Drop the load and use the full range you control.

Locking out hard. Snapping your knees straight at the top takes tension off the muscles and puts it on the joint. Stop just short.

Knees caving in. Letting the knees fall inwards, common with wide stances, robs the glutes and stresses the knees. Push them out over your toes as you press.

How to programme it with hip thrusts

The hip thrust is the more direct glute exercise. In the leg press your quads share the load; in a hip thrust your knees barely move, so the glutes do most of the hip extension work. A 2025 meta-analysis of glute growth research found leg press training does increase gluteus maximus size, but recommended prioritising single exercises such as the barbell hip thrust when the glutes are the main target (Krause Neto et al., 2025).

The two complement each other well. The hip thrust loads your glutes hardest near the top, with your hips extended, and the leg press loads them in a deep, stretched position at the bottom. A simple week could look like this:

• Day 1: hip thrust 3 to 4 sets of 8 to 12, then glute-focused leg press 3 sets of 10 to 15.
• Day 2: Romanian deadlift 3 sets of 8 to 10, then single leg press 2 to 3 sets of 10 to 12 per leg.

That's roughly 10 to 14 hard sets for glutes across the week, which suits most people training for size. If you can't hip thrust (no bench, back discomfort, or a gym that doesn't love you taking over the floor), our hip thrust alternatives ranks the best swaps by how much they load the glutes.

Training at home

Most home leg presses are either plate-loaded sleds or a leg press station on a cable multi gym, and the station type matters for glute work. Look for a platform tall enough to put your heels high without your toes hanging off, and a backrest that lets your hips fold deeply. Our SPORTSROYALS home gym review looks at a 68kg stack multi gym with a built-in leg press, and covers whether the platform and seat give you enough range for this kind of setup.

If you're new to the machine, start with the basics in our leg press guide before moving your feet up.

Recommended reads

1. Leg press: how to do it, muscles worked and foot placement
2. Single leg press: setup, foot placement and benefits
3. What is a good leg press weight?
4. Hip thrust alternatives ranked by glute loading
5. SPORTSROYALS home gym review