Forget Everything You Know About The Leg Press...
If you want to grow a pair of thick, strong, and muscular legs, then the leg press is one of the best tools to get the job done.
Since its creation in the early 1900s, it’s been a staple in bodybuilding routines and helped transform many pairs of twig-like legs into athletic, competition-winning tree trunks.
The reason why the leg press is so good at adding slabs of muscle to your pins, and the reason it’s adored by experienced gym-goers, is because it can be loaded up heavy.
However, unlike its free-weight counterparts, it doesn’t require any stabilisation, which means significantly more stress can be applied to the lower body musculature compared to its free-weight counterparts.
By no means should free-weight exercises, such as the squat, be dropped from your training, but rather, the leg press is the perfect addition to your lower body training for maximising muscle development.
Another advantage of the leg press is that it can be used by people when returning from injury since the previously injured muscle can be trained at a very low intensity and in a very controlled manner in order to rebuild any lost muscle mass caused from taking time off from training.
Introducing The Leg Press Into Your Training
A quick scan of some popular bodybuilding routines shows the leg press is used in the following ways: -
- At the beginning of a lower body session to ‘pre-fatigue’ the legs
- At the end of a superset or tri-set to maximise metabolic fatigue and minimise injury risk
- As a ‘finisher’ at the end of a session to ensure the leg muscles are thoroughly exhausted, which exposes them to a powerful growth stimulus
- As part of a fat loss circuit to ‘maximise’ calorie expenditure and trigger the release of fat-incinerating hormones
- As a regular part of the session to provide volume for the lower body.
- Eccentric reps to maximise muscle damage to stimulate massive muscle growth in the quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes.
What’s Wrong With All Other Leg Press Machines?
At Watson HQ, we felt unsatisfied with the current range of leg press machines available.
It seemed that many companies failed to take the user experience into account during the design process, which has resulted in the construction of many uncomfortable machines that are inferior for building leg muscles.
If you’ve ever used the leg press machine in your training, then you may have experienced some or all of the following: -
- Clunky movement making each rep feeling harder than it should be
- Uncomfortable seating, which distracts you from the movement and makes it harder to load up heavy
- Difficult and/or uncomfortable to use for one leg at a time
- Lower back strain at the bottom of the movement
- Not enough weight, or enough space for loading plates, so the machine quickly becomes ‘too easy.’
- Narrow footplate, which can make the movement feel uncomfortable and provides only a limited space for foot positions and leg training options
But we want you to forget everything about the leg press as you currently know it…
Introducing…. The Watson Animal Plate Loaded Leg Press
After deciding that we wanted to create a leg press that would suit every bodybuilder and fitness enthusiast, the team at Watson Gym Equipment got together and completely deconstructed the traditional device, examining it from every angle and thinking of brand-new and unique ways of creating the best machine in the world.
Our dream was to create a machine that would enable the user to build the thickest legs imaginable as quickly as possible and without compromising on safety.
After many designs and re-designs, we were finally ready to give the blueprints to our engineers for them to begin working on the first model and waited patiently with our breath held.
When we were finally able to lay our eyes on the completed machine, we were blown away.
It was a thing of beauty.
But as impressed as we were, this simply wasn’t enough.
We had to hold back our excitement until our customers tried it out.
After all, they were the ones who needed to be impressed.
Before we tell you what our customers have said about our leg press, let us tell you why the Watson Animal Plate Loaded Leg Press is so different from every other machine on the market…
What Makes The Watson Animal Plate Loaded Leg Press Different?
This allows you to train one leg at a time, which is perfect for bringing up strength and/or muscle mass discrepancies, maximising hypertrophy, working around an injury or rehabbing from a previous injury.
Each carriage can hold up to 600kg, which means you’ll never outgrow this machine and find it becomes ‘too easy’.
Finally, there are 6 loading pins, so you can change the weights in the blink of an eye, making it perfect for when you’re training with a partner of a different strength level or if you require rapid intra-set weight changes, for example, during drop sets.
The platform measures 1400mm x 500mm, which makes it twice as wide as a regular platform.
This gives you a much broader range of foot positions, allowing you to use the same foot position as a wide stance squat or a sumo deadlift.
Ultimately, you’re enabled to emphasise all areas of the leg musculature and not just be restricted to only using a narrow foot width.
Each of the independent carriages runs on four Thompson 40mm linear bearings, which allow for an extremely smooth feel during the movement.
No longer will you have to suffer on stiff and clunky machines that make each rep feel like you’re moving through a treacle.
Now you can squeeze out extra reps with greater comfort and trigger more muscle growth.
This is a very basic (but useful) feature we noticed was missing from the majority of devices.
By attaching bands to the bottom of the machine, you provide accommodating resistance, giving you constant resistance throughout the entire range of movement, and it can be a straightforward way of making lighter weights feel much tougher.
Alternatively, if attached to the top, they can provide assistance at the bottom of the movement, allowing you to put more emphasis on the top range and get used to handling heavier loads without risking any strain on your lower back.
By giving you the option to choose the angle of the backrest, it makes the exercise feel a lot more comfortable and reduces the likelihood of a lower back strain.
Another positive is that, with the exercise feeling a lot more comfortable, you can put more emphasis on the working muscles and generate maximum muscle growth.
What Our Customers Say?
Of course, we’re always going to say our leg press is a fantastic piece of kit.
But you don’t just have to take our word for it - Check out some of the reviews below from a few of our customers.
Best In The World?
We know gym owners have many options when it comes to choosing a leg press machine, and whilst many are swayed by price and often choose the cheapest option, we’re proud to say that our leg press is stocked by several of the best gyms in the world, including: -
- Ben Pakulskis’ MI40 Gym
- Rob & Dana Linn Baileys’ Warhouse Gym
- Nick Mitchells’ Ultimate Performance
- Tony Dohertys’ Dohertys Gym
- Daine Mcdonalds’ Clean Health
Forget Everything You Know About The Leg Press...
If you want to grow a pair of thick, strong, and muscular legs, then the leg press is one of the best tools to get the job done.
Since its creation in the early 1900s, it’s been a staple in bodybuilding routines and helped transform many pairs of twig-like legs into athletic, competition-winning tree trunks.
The reason why the leg press is so good at adding slabs of muscle to your pins, and the reason it’s adored by experienced gym-goers, is because it can be loaded up heavy.
However, unlike its free-weight counterparts, it doesn’t require any stabilisation, which means significantly more stress can be applied to the lower body musculature compared to its free-weight counterparts.
By no means should free-weight exercises, such as the squat, be dropped from your training, but rather, the leg press is the perfect addition to your lower body training for maximising muscle development.
Another advantage of the leg press is that it can be used by people when returning from injury since the previously injured muscle can be trained at a very low intensity and in a very controlled manner in order to rebuild any lost muscle mass caused from taking time off from training.
Introducing The Leg Press Into Your Training
A quick scan of some popular bodybuilding routines shows the leg press is used in the following ways: -
- At the beginning of a lower body session to ‘pre-fatigue’ the legs
- At the end of a superset or tri-set to maximise metabolic fatigue and minimise injury risk
- As a ‘finisher’ at the end of a session to ensure the leg muscles are thoroughly exhausted, which exposes them to a powerful growth stimulus
- As part of a fat loss circuit to ‘maximise’ calorie expenditure and trigger the release of fat-incinerating hormones
- As a regular part of the session to provide volume for the lower body.
- Eccentric reps to maximise muscle damage to stimulate massive muscle growth in the quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes.
What’s Wrong With All Other Leg Press Machines?
At Watson HQ, we felt unsatisfied with the current range of leg press machines available.
It seemed that many companies failed to take the user experience into account during the design process, which has resulted in the construction of many uncomfortable machines that are inferior for building leg muscles.
If you’ve ever used the leg press machine in your training, then you may have experienced some or all of the following: -
- Clunky movement making each rep feeling harder than it should be
- Uncomfortable seating, which distracts you from the movement and makes it harder to load up heavy
- Difficult and/or uncomfortable to use for one leg at a time
- Lower back strain at the bottom of the movement
- Not enough weight, or enough space for loading plates, so the machine quickly becomes ‘too easy.’
- Narrow footplate, which can make the movement feel uncomfortable and provides only a limited space for foot positions and leg training options
But we want you to forget everything about the leg press as you currently know it…
Introducing…. The Watson Animal Plate Loaded Leg Press
After deciding that we wanted to create a leg press that would suit every bodybuilder and fitness enthusiast, the team at Watson Gym Equipment got together and completely deconstructed the traditional device, examining it from every angle and thinking of brand-new and unique ways of creating the best machine in the world.
Our dream was to create a machine that would enable the user to build the thickest legs imaginable as quickly as possible and without compromising on safety.
After many designs and re-designs, we were finally ready to give the blueprints to our engineers for them to begin working on the first model and waited patiently with our breath held.
When we were finally able to lay our eyes on the completed machine, we were blown away.
It was a thing of beauty.
But as impressed as we were, this simply wasn’t enough.
We had to hold back our excitement until our customers tried it out.
After all, they were the ones who needed to be impressed.
Before we tell you what our customers have said about our leg press, let us tell you why the Watson Animal Plate Loaded Leg Press is so different from every other machine on the market…
What Makes The Watson Animal Plate Loaded Leg Press Different?
This allows you to train one leg at a time, which is perfect for bringing up strength and/or muscle mass discrepancies, maximising hypertrophy, working around an injury or rehabbing from a previous injury.
Each carriage can hold up to 600kg, which means you’ll never outgrow this machine and find it becomes ‘too easy’.
Finally, there are 6 loading pins, so you can change the weights in the blink of an eye, making it perfect for when you’re training with a partner of a different strength level or if you require rapid intra-set weight changes, for example, during drop sets.
The platform measures 1400mm x 500mm, which makes it twice as wide as a regular platform.
This gives you a much broader range of foot positions, allowing you to use the same foot position as a wide stance squat or a sumo deadlift.
Ultimately, you’re enabled to emphasise all areas of the leg musculature and not just be restricted to only using a narrow foot width.
Each of the independent carriages runs on four Thompson 40mm linear bearings, which allow for an extremely smooth feel during the movement.
No longer will you have to suffer on stiff and clunky machines that make each rep feel like you’re moving through a treacle.
Now you can squeeze out extra reps with greater comfort and trigger more muscle growth.
This is a very basic (but useful) feature we noticed was missing from the majority of devices.
By attaching bands to the bottom of the machine, you provide accommodating resistance, giving you constant resistance throughout the entire range of movement, and it can be a straightforward way of making lighter weights feel much tougher.
Alternatively, if attached to the top, they can provide assistance at the bottom of the movement, allowing you to put more emphasis on the top range and get used to handling heavier loads without risking any strain on your lower back.
By giving you the option to choose the angle of the backrest, it makes the exercise feel a lot more comfortable and reduces the likelihood of a lower back strain.
Another positive is that, with the exercise feeling a lot more comfortable, you can put more emphasis on the working muscles and generate maximum muscle growth.
What Our Customers Say?
Of course, we’re always going to say our leg press is a fantastic piece of kit.
But you don’t just have to take our word for it - Check out some of the reviews below from a few of our customers.
Best In The World?
We know gym owners have many options when it comes to choosing a leg press machine, and whilst many are swayed by price and often choose the cheapest option, we’re proud to say that our leg press is stocked by several of the best gyms in the world, including: -
- Ben Pakulskis’ MI40 Gym
- Rob & Dana Linn Baileys’ Warhouse Gym
- Nick Mitchells’ Ultimate Performance
- Tony Dohertys’ Dohertys Gym
- Daine Mcdonalds’ Clean Health
Jake –
An incredible addition to our leg area at the gym. Solid build and super smooth.
The uni-lateral setting is fantastic for our injured/recovering clients looking to build symmetry and balance back to their lower body. The band peg attachments are also an amazing extra.
Masato Kobayashi (verified owner) –
The world’s highest level leg press machine.
firmapost (verified owner) –
Absolutely love it. It has a great feel and the quality of the build is great. Our members are praising this one.
jack1 –
Everything I was looking for and more. Superbly made and a dream to use with all clients. Certainly enhanced the versatility of our facility and our programmes.
JamieMolloy –
This is without doubt the best leg press on the market. It feels completely indestructible and once you have it in place you cant even move it.
I use to struggle getting in an out of other brand leg presses as my flexiibiity is very poor. But because of the adjustable back rest, I’ve never felt more comfortable. The main selling point for me is that the carriages can be locked, or used independently which is great strengthening the less dominant leg.
5 stars for quality, 5 stars for functionality – I recommend this to anyone who is looking to spend some money on a leg press.
The only downside was that they didn’t come with band pegs as advertised. However I made a quick phone call and they were with me the next day. They had just forgotten to pack them in.
I got mine with a white frame and red upholstery and it looks fantastic
Thank you Watson
Jamie
Mark –
this beast is the finest leg press machine I have ever used
it solves the 2 major problems I have always had with a leg press machine
1. it is unilateral . . . on a conventional leg press machine if the user has a disparity in leg strength, as most do, the strong leg will assume more of the load and this disparity will increase
with this unilateral machine you quickly feel which leg is weaker but there is no way to compensate with the stronger leg
2. using the conveniently fitted rubber band struts you can make the exercise accommodating
on a conventional leg press the bottom position is the weakest position and the position in which the lumbar is most vulnerable
using a strong band evens this out beautifully and the resistance feels equal throughout the full range of motion
the reason for the 4 stars is like all other leg press machines I have used there is not enough lumber support
I place an “ab mat” cushion there and it is perfect although I think it should be possible to build this into the machine
despite this it is a fantastic machine in every other aspect and will give you a lifetime of use