A study found that doing leg press exercises, whether with a special pre-exhaustion method or the regular way, didn't make the glute muscles grow much in men who were new to training after 9 weeks. This means the leg press machine isn't great for building these muscles.

If untrained adult men do leg press exercises for nine weeks, their butt muscles won't grow much bigger, no matter how they do the exercises.

A shorter, easier leg workout gives the same muscle and strength gains as a longer, harder one for beginners, even though you're doing less overall work.

Doing hip thrusts or squats for 9 weeks with the same total work builds your butt muscles just as much, even though hip thrusts feel like they work your butt harder during the exercise.

Leg presses make your butt and inner thigh muscles bigger, but leg extensions don’t — if you want to grow those muscles, leg presses are the better choice.

If you train your legs with the leg press machine for 9 weeks, you’ll get stronger and your thighs will get bigger—even if you do it just once a week or spread it out over three days.