Good Leg Press Weight By Age + Bodyweight: Standards + What The Number Actually Means

A good leg press weight for an intermediate male lifter is roughly 1.5-2.5x bodyweight, while an intermediate female lifter can typically press about 1-1.5x bodyweight. In this guide we cover leg press standards by age, sex, and training level — with comparison charts so you can see where your numbers rank.

Many gym-goers and weight lifters often want to know, what a good leg press weight is according to their age, sex, and fitness experience.

In this exercise guide, we will discuss how to do leg presses for strength and mass gains, the benefits of leg presses, and what a good leg press weight is based on age, sex, and fitness level.

Let’s dive in! 

The Honest Truth About A “Good” Leg Press Weight (And Why The Number On The Stack Is Almost Never The Number You Think)

The leg press is one of the most-loaded movements in the gym — and also one of the most misleading. Machine geometry, sled angle, plate weight, and friction all conspire to make the number on the stack a poor proxy for how strong your lower body actually is. Before you rank yourself against the standards below, here are three things about leg press benchmarks that most charts never mention.

The same “leg press” varies by 20-40% depending on which machine you’re on

A 45-degree plate-loaded leg press is not the same exercise as a horizontal seated leg press, which is not the same as a vertical leg press. Escamilla, Fleisig, Zheng, Lander & Barrentine’s 2001 Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise biomechanics comparison of squat and leg press variants documented that identical absolute loads produce substantially different joint forces and moment arms across machines. NSCA-published equipment reviews note that sled angle, body angle, and seat position produce load differentials of roughly 20-40% in the force your quads actually absorb. Translation: “400 lbs on the leg press” on a 45-degree plate-loaded machine is not the same lift as “400 lbs” on a horizontal cable-driven machine. Before you compare yourself to the standards below, identify which machine variant the standards were built from.

Leg press rarely transfers to free-weight squat strength at the ratio the machine suggests

Anecdotally, gym-goers press 2-3 times what they can squat, and assume that’s a measure of hidden leg strength. The literature tells a different story. Wirth, Keiner, Hartmann, Sander & Mickel’s 2016 Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research comparison of squat versus leg press training found that heavy back squat work transferred to sprint and jump performance, while matched-volume leg press work did not — despite the leg press group lifting larger absolute loads. Escamilla et al. (2001) showed that the leg press removes the trunk-stability, hip-hinge, and postural-control demands that make the squat athletically transferable in the first place. A “good” leg press number is a respectable gym metric, but it’s not evidence of a proportionally strong squat, deadlift, or vertical jump.

For runners, leg press is useful for one specific purpose — and not the one you’d guess

Blagrove, Howatson & Hayes’ 2018 Sports Medicine review on strength training for middle- and long-distance runners consistently points to heavy multi-joint lifts — back squat, deadlift, Romanian deadlift, lunges — as the primary drivers of improved running economy and injury resistance. The leg press, though, earns a specific role: it lets runners load the legs safely during injury rehab or high-volume training blocks when technique under a loaded bar is compromised. Lauersen, Bertelsen & Andersen’s 2014 British Journal of Sports Medicine meta-analysis on strength training and injury prevention found that progressive resistance training cut overuse injuries substantially in recreational athletes — and the leg press is a low-skill entry point for that load. If you’re a marathon runner looking at the leg-press table for validation, the honest answer is: the number is less important than whether you’re using it at all. “Good enough” to load the legs safely beats “impressive” and impossible to program around race training.

When the standards table IS the right question

If the leg press is a core part of your program — bodybuilding, physique training, or hypertrophy-focused lifting — and you’re training on a consistent machine, then the age and bodyweight standards below do exactly what you need. They give you a fair anchor to other lifters doing the same movement the same way. The “honest truth” framing above is for the reader comparing their leg press to athletic, running, or overall-strength outcomes. If the goal is the leg press itself, the table is a clean answer.

What’s A Good Leg Press Weight? 

Although there are no official leg press norms in terms of how much weight you should leg press based on age, sex, or fitness level, Strength Level provides a large pool of data to help estimate average leg press weights.¹Horizontal Leg Press Standards for Men and Women (lb) – Strength Level. (2021). Strengthlevel.com. https://strengthlevel.com/strength-standards/horizontal-leg-press/lb

This site has data that can help you find the average horizontal leg press weight by age, sex, and body weight in pounds or kilograms based on fitness level by aggregating data from their community members through 626,463 leg press workouts.

Based on this data, here are the leg press averages for men and women by age, body weight, and training level.

How Much Should Men Be Able to Leg Press?

The following table shows the overall average weight for leg press in pounds, kilograms, and body weight for men using Strength Level data:

Based on these leg press standards from Strength Level, when all of the max leg press data is aggregated, the average leg press weight for men is 425 pounds at the intermediate level or 2.5 times your body weight.

Thus, men who are leg pressing bodyweight loads with their leg press 1RM are considered to be at the beginner level.

What’s the Average Leg Press Weight for Men By Age? 

The table below shows the average leg press weight for men by age presented in pounds and kilograms based on training level using data for leg press weights from Strength Level:

What’s the Average Leg Press Weight for Men By Weight? 

The table below shows the average leg press weight for men by body weight presented in pounds and kilograms based on training level using data for male leg press weights from Strength Level:

How Much Should Women Leg Press? 

This table provides the leg press averages for women when all of the female leg press 1RM standards are aggregated.

According to this data, the average leg press weight for all women at the beginner level is 82 pounds or half your body weight.

What’s the Average Leg Press Weight for Women By Age? 

The table below shows the average leg press weight for women by age presented in pounds and kilograms based on training level using data for female leg press weights from Strength Level:

What’s the Average Leg Press Weight for Women By Weight? 

The table below shows the average leg press for women by body weight. 

Here again, you can find the leg press standards by body weight in pounds and kilograms based on training level:

So, how do you interpret this data?

If you ask the question, “How much should I be able to leg press for my weight?” you should look at your training level and then see the average leg press 1RM for your body weight.

Or look at the first table to find the average leg press by age for those in your same training level and see how you compare.

A “good leg pressing weight“ would be leg pressing a weight that is at or above the leg press norm for your age or body weight and training level.

According to the training levels given on Strength Level for leg press weight standards:

• Beginners have just started weightlifting. 
• Novice weightlifters usually have less than 6 months of training. 
• Intermediate lifters have been training for 6 months to 1-2 years
• Advanced lifters have been lifting weights for more than two years.

The other way to look at these leg press standards charts is to look at how much you can lift at your leg press 1RM and then see where it falls in the training levels.

If you are below the leg pressing weight standard based on your training level and age or weight, your strength is below average, and if your max leg press is higher than the average leg press weight for your age or weight, you are above average relative to your peer group. 

How Much Should I Leg Press?

Regardless of the leg press standards above, it is important to distinguish that the answer to the question: “How much should I leg press?”, is often distinctly different than: “How much should I be able to leg press?”

When you are considering the question: “How much should I be able to leg press,” you can use the above tables of leg press weight standards to see what is a good leg press 1RM weight for your age, sex, and body weight.

From there, you can use your level of training to find the appropriate column that shows how much weight you should be able to leg press based on your training level, age, sex, and body weight, as described before.

However, you may be above or below the average leg press weight for your body weight, age, or sex.

Thus, the answer to the question: “How much should I be leg pressing?”, really has nothing to do with what constitutes a good leg press weight.

Instead, you should use the weight that is appropriate for you and your fitness goals whether you are above or below the average max leg press weight for lifters like you.

If you are trying to increase strength, you will perform fewer leg press reps in each set at a higher percentage of your leg press 1RM weight.

Generally, you should lift at least 85% of your 1RM for 2 to 5 reps and 3 to 5 sets to increase your leg press strength.

If your goal is to build muscle, also known as hypertrophy training, you should use lighter loads for your leg press weight, typically somewhere between 70 and 85% of your leg 1RM weight for three sets of 8-12 reps.

Remember, your strength training program should be individualized to you.

Therefore, the answer to, “How much weight should I leg press?”, is however much you are capable of lifting with proper form and technique for the correct number of reps and sets you want to do based on your training goals.

For more information on reps and sets when using the leg press machine, click here.

References

• 1
  Horizontal Leg Press Standards for Men and Women (lb) – Strength Level. (2021). Strengthlevel.com. https://strengthlevel.com/strength-standards/horizontal-leg-press/lb