The way your muscles fire when you do leg presses vs. leg extensions matches up with which muscles end up growing bigger after training.

31

Pro

0

Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

31

Community contributions welcome

31

Hypertrophic Effects of Single- versus Multi-Joint Exercise: A Direct Comparison Between Knee Extension and Leg Press.

Randomized Controlled Trial

Human

2026 Feb 5

The study found that how much your muscles 'light up' during leg press vs. knee extension matches how much they grow afterward—so yes, the way your muscles fire during exercise is linked to how much they get bigger.

Contradicting (0)

0

Community contributions welcome

No contradicting evidence found

Gold Standard Evidence Needed

According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Hypertrophic Effects of Single- versus Multi-Joint Exercise: A Direct Comparison Between Knee Extension and Leg Press.

Score: 31

DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000003957

Similar Assertions

The way your muscles fire when you do leg presses vs. leg extensions matches up with which muscles end up getting bigger after training.

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The way your muscles fire when you do leg presses vs. leg extensions matches up with which muscles end up getting bigger after training.

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The way your muscles fire when you do leg presses vs. leg extensions matches up with which muscles end up getting bigger after training.

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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.

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Pushing a heavy leg press machine makes the outer part of your thigh muscle grow more than doing leg extensions, because it puts more overall stress on that part of the muscle.

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