LIONSCOOL Leg Extension and Curl Machine Review: A Cable Machine for Home Quads

LIONSCOOL leg extension and curl machine: the short answer

The LIONSCOOL Leg Extension and Curl Machine V4.0 is a sensible buy if you want proper quad isolation at home and can live with lying leg curls only. At £429.99 (in stock when we checked on 3 November 2026) you get a 10-gauge steel frame, a cable and pulley drive instead of a lever arm, a 400lb plate-loading capacity and a single pin to switch between extension and curl. You don't get plates, you don't get a seated curl, and the machine stretches to about 1.65m long once it's in curl mode.

We'd rate it 4.0 out of 5. It does the one job most home gyms can't do without a machine, which is load the quads directly through knee extension, and the two-mode design saves you buying a separate lying leg curl. Where it loses marks is the hamstring side, because the curl it does offer is the version the research rates slightly lower.

Check the LIONSCOOL leg machine price on Amazon£429.99

Who it suits (and who should skip it)

Buy it if your home gym already has a rack, a bar and a stack of Olympic plates, and squats and lunges aren't hitting your quads the way you'd like. Leg extensions are one of the few ways to train the rectus femoris (the quad muscle that crosses the hip) hard without your lower back or balance becoming the limit, which is why they show up in rehab programmes and bodybuilding splits alike. Our leg extension guide covers the movement itself.

Skip it if you don't own plates yet and your budget stops at £430, because the real cost will land closer to £550 to £650 once you've bought enough iron to load it. Skip it too if hamstring growth is your main goal, for reasons we'll come to.

Build quality and the cable system

LIONSCOOL builds the frame from 10-gauge steel and widens the base feet, which it says stops the machine rocking or lifting during heavy sets. That claim is believable for a leg extension, where the load pulls down and forward rather than trying to tip the frame sideways. At around 125lb (57kg) the machine itself is lighter than most lever-arm leg extensions, and much of that saving comes from the drive.

Instead of a pivoting arm with plates hung off the end, the V4.0 runs an 8mm reinforced cable over an aluminium pulley. You load the plate posts, the cable links them to the foot roller, and when you extend your knee the cable lifts the weight. LIONSCOOL's pitch is that this removes dead spots and keeps resistance consistent through the rep. On a lever machine, the effective load changes with the arm's angle, so some parts of the rep feel heavier than others; a cable running in a straight path doesn't do that in the same way.

What a cable system brings with it is upkeep. Cables and pulleys are wear parts, and the 8mm cable falls under the one-year parts warranty rather than the two-year frame cover. Check it for fraying every few months and you'll catch problems early. The listing doesn't state the resistance ratio between the plates and the roller, so don't assume 20kg on the post feels identical to 20kg on your gym's machine.

Leg extension mode

This is the mode the machine is really built around. You sit on the three-part seat, set the backrest to one of six depth positions so your knee lines up with the pivot, then lock the foot roller at whichever of its nine angles sits comfortably on your lower shin. The 20in roller spreads the pressure across both legs, and LIONSCOOL has dropped the knee hold-down pad found on some machines, which makes getting in and out quicker.

Getting the knee aligned with the pivot matters more than any other setting, because a misaligned knee drags the roller up or down your shin as you extend. Six positions should cover most adults, although very tall or very short users are the ones who most often struggle with fixed-increment adjustment on budget machines.

One honest limit: the listing describes the backrest adjustment as seat depth and says nothing about reclining it. That's worth knowing because a 2025 study in the Journal of Sports Science found that leg extensions done with the hip more open, at 40 degrees of flexion rather than 90, produced more growth in the rectus femoris over ten weeks (Larsen et al., 2025). The vastus lateralis grew similarly either way. If you want that more reclined position, you'd have to lean back against the handles yourself, since the machine as listed won't do it for you.

Lying leg curl mode

Pull the quick-release pin, reposition, and the bench becomes a prone curl. You lie face down, hook your heels under the roller and curl towards your glutes. Depth grows from 57in to 65in in this position, so that's the measurement to plan your room around.

The machine does the lying curl well enough, but it can't do a seated one, and LIONSCOOL is upfront about that. It's the review's biggest catch. A 12-week trial by Maeo and colleagues had people train one leg with seated curls and the other with lying curls, and the seated leg gained more whole-hamstring muscle volume, about 14% against 9% (Maeo et al., 2021). The authors put this down to the seated position training the hamstrings at longer muscle lengths. Lying curls still built muscle, and both versions protected equally well against soreness from eccentric work, so this isn't a reason to write the machine off. It just means serious hamstring training should include a hip-hinge movement too. Our lying leg curl machine guide and leg curl guide explain how to get the most out of the prone version.

Plates, space and delivery

The 7in loading posts fit standard 2in Olympic plates. Seven inches isn't a lot of sleeve, so thick cast iron plates use it up quickly, while slimmer steel or calibrated plates let you fit more weight per side. Most people will run out of quad strength long before they hit 181kg on a leg extension, but heavier lifters doing lying curls might find the sleeve length becomes the real ceiling. Our Olympic weight plates guide covers which types pack in the most weight per inch.

At 109cm wide and up to 165cm deep, it needs a dedicated spot. It isn't the sort of machine you fold away after a session. The two-box delivery is a small irritation, and LIONSCOOL warns the boxes may arrive on different days, so don't book an afternoon for assembly until both have arrived. Tools and instructions are included.

Value for money

£429.99 puts the V4.0 in the middle of the home leg machine market. Cheaper bench attachments exist, but they usually bolt onto a weight bench, limit you to light loads and wobble when you push them. Commercial-style lever machines with both seated and lying curls cost substantially more and weigh far more than 57kg.

For a home gym that's missing quad isolation, the price is fair. The cost to factor in is plates. If you already have a set for squats and deadlifts, the machine shares them and the value case gets stronger. If you don't, buy the plates first, because a rack and plates will do more for your legs than this machine will on its own. Our leg machines guide puts the options side by side, and the SPORTSROYALS home gym leg press review covers a pricier all-in-one route.

See today's LIONSCOOL leg extension and curl machine price

Recommended reads

• Leg extension: how to do it, muscles worked and benefits
• Lying leg curl machine: types and buying one for home
• Leg curl alternatives you can do at home
• Leg machines at the gym, every machine explained
• More reviews in our home gym section