Damn that bar feels heavy today

[iron addict]

If you are doing a particular excercise using big weights and the bar feels extra heavy, or extra light, it may be because it is. Some 45 lb olympic plates will be off as much as 7 lbs from my experience in weighing many. put pne that is 4 lbs over on one side, and another that is 5 lbs off on the other and your load is 9 lbs heavier than you thought, and it feels like a ton heavier. It goes to reason if they are light, you will feel like superman. What is the answer to this?? There really isn't one if you workout in a commercial gym. If you workout at a home gym like I do, weigh all your plates and always use the matched pairs.

I have weighed HUNDREDS for a couple gyms and friends over the years on certified scales, and they vary a LOT.

Iron Addict

[Heckman]

Very interseting IA...I didn't know that the plates could be that much off the scale. May have to weigh some in next time I go.....

[iron addict]

Most are off 1-3 lbs. Some more. I remeber being pissed off about this so I want to a sporting goods store and bought some really expensive ivankos. They were off more than some of the chinees CHEAP plates.

Iron Addict

[Shawn "Future" Bellon]

Good point. I am superstitious about plates.

[In-Human]

How about bars, damn we have 750 lb bars and one weighs 44 lbs another 52, another 47, we do have one 1000 lb bar and it comes in at 62 lbs, the only plates I know that are the exact weight they say is comp plates they are dead on in Kilos...

[iron addict]

The guy that is using that 62 lb bar with 6, 4 lb overwieght plates is gonna walk off pissed off that day-lol

Iron Addict

[Ken "Skip" Hill]

This is a good point, IA. However, I don't care about the weight being heavier or lighter as a whole but what bothers me is I can tell immediately if one side is even a couple pounds heavier than the other side.

At our gym, all weights are the same. They are all black, rubber edged plates BUT.... we have old ones that are dull and less shiny and we have newer ones that are shinier but you really have to look closely. The new ones are heavier than the old ones. It drives my training partners crazy that I always use old ones on anything free weight that takes balance but I don't care if they are mixed up if it is a machine that is "fixed".

I first noticed that plates were sometimes different weights a long time ago when I bought weider plates for my home gym when I was a young teenager. The 25s were off so bad that the different between the two was 8 pounds. Nice job Weider. I appreciate your attention to detail you idiot.

Skip

[Creator_11]

Same here, I just used the same bar, and same plates day in day out, you can tell which rubberized plates are the new ones, and which ones are the older once. I never mis match the plates when doing say barbell curls, or squats....

[Creator_11]

This also reminds me of cables. Ie. Cable rows.

Been to two different gyms, both have the exact same looking cable rows machines, yet the one I used to go to when traveling to the gf, if I set it to 150, it felt like 200 set at my gym.

[xRAJAx]

I wouldn't be suprised if the same thing goes for Dumbells. I swear the 40's and 50's in our gym feel different in each arm.

R

[MsteveM]

solution: just put a smiley face sticker on all the light ones and you're set!

i knew i had tons of unbalanced plates when i trained at home. every brand is very different. but at the gym, i thought the bar felt slightly unbalanced a few times but dismissed it as my grip - maybe it wasnt..hrmmm... i think im gonna weigh a few plates just for the fun of it. thanks for the thread IA.