Machine Leg Strength
Leg Press Strength Standards
The leg press is the most over-reported number in any gym, so here are figures you can actually check yourself against. Enter your bodyweight for your beginner to elite leg press numbers, counted in plates on the sled, and see which level your best set puts you in.
Find Your Leg Press Level
Enter your bodyweight, pick your sex, and put in your best lift. Everything below updates as you type.
What the Leg Press Really Measures
Leg drive with the spine taken out of the equation.
The leg press puts your back against a pad and asks the quads, glutes and adductors to extend the hips and knees against a sled running on rails. Because the trunk is supported and the load is guided, you can push far more than you can squat, and you can keep pushing when a squat would have failed on balance or bracing rather than on leg strength. That is the point of the machine, and it is also why it flatters everybody.
It is also the exercise where the number on the sled means the least. A shallow press with the seat back and the knees stopping at 100 degrees is a different exercise from a deep one, the sled itself weighs something on almost every machine, and 45-degree sleds, horizontal sleds and pendulum machines all read differently for the same effort. Every figure on this page counts plates only and assumes a press where the knees come to roughly 90 degrees or better.
Where These Numbers Come From
A share of your back squat that shrinks as you get stronger.
The leg press is derived from the back squat standard on our strength standards page, because both are asking the same muscles to extend the same joints. The proportion is not flat. Beginners press about twice their squat, intermediates about 1.8 times, and elite lifters about 1.6 times, because the machine advantage is largest for the lifter who has the least practice at balancing and bracing a barbell. As squat technique catches up, the gap narrows.
That tapering is the honest part of the model, and it is also the part that stops the elite figures becoming silly. A flat multiplier would have put elite men above five times bodyweight, which is more than most sleds hold in plates. The tapered version keeps the top of the table inside the range of a real machine.
| Level | Share of the back squat standard |
|---|---|
| Beginner | 200 percent |
| Novice | 190 percent |
| Intermediate | 180 percent |
| Advanced | 170 percent |
| Elite | 160 percent |
These standards are estimates derived from typical ratios to the main lifts, rounded to the nearest 5 lb. The bench, squat, deadlift and overhead press figures they are built on are the bodyweight-ratio approximations published on our strength standards page, which are aligned with widely used references in the strength and conditioning field including ExRx.net. Nothing here is measured lab data, and no table anywhere else has been copied. Treat every figure as a target to aim at, not a verdict on you.
Leg Press Standards for Men
Estimated 1-rep max in plates on the sled, by bodyweight.
| Bodyweight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 110 lb | 165 lb | 260 lb | 295 lb | 420 lb | 485 lb |
| 130 lb | 195 lb | 310 lb | 350 lb | 495 lb | 570 lb |
| 150 lb | 225 lb | 355 lb | 405 lb | 575 lb | 660 lb |
| 170 lb | 255 lb | 405 lb | 460 lb | 650 lb | 750 lb |
| 190 lb (your bodyweight) | 285 lb | 450 lb | 515 lb | 725 lb | 835 lb |
| 210 lb | 315 lb | 500 lb | 565 lb | 805 lb | 925 lb |
| 230 lb | 345 lb | 545 lb | 620 lb | 880 lb | 1,010 lb |
| 250 lb | 375 lb | 595 lb | 675 lb | 955 lb | 1,100 lb |
Leg Press Standards for Women
Estimated 1-rep max in plates on the sled, by bodyweight.
| Bodyweight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 110 lb | 110 lb | 155 lb | 220 lb | 300 lb | 350 lb |
| 130 lb | 130 lb | 185 lb | 255 lb | 355 lb | 415 lb |
| 150 lb | 150 lb | 215 lb | 295 lb | 410 lb | 480 lb |
| 170 lb | 170 lb | 240 lb | 335 lb | 460 lb | 545 lb |
| 190 lb | 190 lb | 270 lb | 375 lb | 515 lb | 610 lb |
| 210 lb | 210 lb | 300 lb | 415 lb | 570 lb | 670 lb |
| 230 lb | 230 lb | 330 lb | 455 lb | 625 lb | 735 lb |
| 250 lb | 250 lb | 355 lb | 495 lb | 680 lb | 800 lb |
A Worked Example
What an intermediate 190 lb man is actually pushing.
A 190 lb man at the intermediate level squats 285 lb and leg presses 515 lb, which is six plates a side plus a 25 on a 45-degree sled. If he is pressing eight reps with four plates a side, that is 360 lb of plates, and a rep-max estimate puts his single near 450 lb, which is exactly the novice mark of 450 lb, with the intermediate mark of 515 lb still ahead of him.
Notice how much larger the leg press numbers are than the squat numbers for the same person. That is the machine, not the man. If your leg press is climbing while your squat sits still, the extra load is being absorbed by the seat back and the rails, and the honest read is that your squat has not moved.
What These Standards Cannot Tell You
The number is only as good as the range you press through.
Depth changes everything here. Cutting two inches off the bottom of the press can add a hundred pounds to the sled, and no table can tell whether you did. If you want to use these standards, fix your seat position and your stopping point, write them down, and only compare loads pressed the same way.
The sled matters too. Some machines carry 60 lb or more of unloaded carriage, and plate-only numbers on one brand are not comparable with total-load numbers on another. And a heavy leg press does not promise a heavy squat: the transfer is real but partial, so treat this table as a scale for one exercise rather than a measure of how strong your legs are in general.
More Tools
Estimate your press, then check the rest of your leg work.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about these standards.
How much should I be able to leg press?
At 190 lb bodyweight an intermediate man presses about 515 lb in plates and an advanced man about 725 lb. At 140 lb an intermediate woman presses about 275 lb. Put your own bodyweight into the tool at the top for your five figures.
What is the average leg press weight?
Most regular gym-goers land between the novice and intermediate rows, which for a 190 lb man is about 450 to 515 lb of plates. Because so many people press a short range, the average weight you see loaded on a gym sled runs higher than the average honest one-rep max.
Does the leg press sled weight count?
Not in these tables. Every figure here counts the plates you load and ignores the carriage, because carriage weight varies from nothing to over 60 lb depending on the machine. If your gym publishes a starting weight, add it on when you compare against other people.
Why is my leg press so much higher than my squat?
Because the machine holds you up. The seat back takes the bracing demand, the rails take the balance demand, and the range is usually shorter. A two-to-one gap at beginner level is normal, closing to about one and a half to one for advanced lifters.
How are these leg press standards calculated?
Each level is a set share of the back squat standard for the same bodyweight and sex, from twice the squat at beginner down to 1.6 times at elite, rounded to the nearest 5 lb. They are estimates from typical ratios between lifts, not measured data.
Is the leg press a good substitute for squats?
It is a good way to add leg volume without loading the spine, and it is useful when you are injured, short on time or training alone without a rack. It is not a replacement for the balance, bracing and skill you get from squatting, so most lifters use it alongside the squat rather than instead of it.