Have you ever used a vertical leg press at your gym or home ?
On this kind of press we can put less plates than a 45° Leg press ,right ?

I have seen many guys put tons of plates on a 45° leg press and they could not squat with heavy weights.

i cant say i fully understand what u are asking...but with regards to squat vs press weight, for sure i can press more because i am sitting and not having to stabalise(sp) myself unlike squats which i do totaly free

squatting is harder than vertical press

vertical press is harder than 45 degree press

squatting is harder than vertical press

vertical press is harder than 45 degree press


What he said

Theoretically a 45 degree leg press has it so you need to exert a force of m*g*sin(angle). In this case it becomes 0.707*weight.
However, when I throw on 540 lbs on the 45 degree, there is little direct correlation between that and my squating work load. Right now I work with 245 lbs squat, whereas 540*0.707 = 382 lbs. This is 155% more weight than my equivalent squat. I would say it's safe to say that a 45-50% weight of the leg press would be an accurate squat-legpress correlation.

It would be interesting to collect data about 6 full range reps to positive failure data between squats and the 45 degree leg press, and to find the difference. From what I have seen from others in the gyms though, less than half of the weight of the leg press is accurate for what someone can squat.

Keep in mind stabilizers play a much more important role in squats than they do in a rail-guided leg-press. If the stabilizers are weakly developed, the relationship will be in even greater favour of the leg press.

I would say it's safe to say that a 45-50% weight of the leg press would be an accurate squat-legpress correlation.


For my own training, I have found this to be approximately correct.