Why are the plates lying to me?

MightyMandarin

I started using my college's gym regularly this week and having used it twice for squats and bench, one thing's become clear to me.. the plates are so damn heavier than my ones at my normal gym.

I thought I was going mad, or it was down to being hungry, different time of the day training, I'm just weak etc. but after I weighed them all (there's 3 different brands of plates there) and they all showed up as being between .5kg to 1kg heavier than 20kg. So instead of my 6x3 being 140kg as I thought it was, I was actually doing 145 based on the plates I was using. No wonder it felt so f*cking hard that I had to take 5kg off the bar...

Anyone else ever noticed this when training with different equipment? Why can't plate manufacturers just make 20kg plates and stop messing with people's minds?

/rant

b_mac2

What brand of plates had these discrepancies?

MightyMandarin

b_mac2 wrote: »

What brand of plates had these discrepancies?

There were York ones and Hampton ones. I can't remember the third brand.

Zillah

I used a gym in a hotel once, and I lifted exactly what I normally would, and it seemed far harder than normal for no apparent reason. I'd easily believe some plates aren't very accurately labelled.

Seems like an absurd manufacturing mistake for something so simple though.

Mr. CooL ICE

Possibly the plates were calibrated to lb but rounded down when converted to kg. Poor form if true.

MightyMandarin

Nicolas Cage wrote: »

Possibly the plates were calibrated to lb but rounded down when converted to kg. Poor form if true.

Seems like the only logical conclusion. I saw 45lbs and 20kg written on the York ones, but 45lbs= 20.45kg.

Flippin' imperial and metric systems messing with m'gains...

LuckyLloyd

That's part of the reason Eleiko equipment is so expensive - they put the additional effort and labour into calibrating their bars and plates so you can be sure 264kgs IS 264kgs.

One thing I'd say is to try and use plates from the same manufacturer (or same batch from same manafacturer) where possible. I'm sure some of the lads must think I'm OCD when I'm shifting through the York 20's or newer AF 20's in our gym to get to the older bumpers that match what I have on the bar already but:

- If that batch is out it's likely out to the same degree;
- They're the bumpers I was using back in 2013 so it makes my '100kgs' consistent;

Hmm....maybe I am OCD

WHIP IT!

Hate to say it, but my gym recently got a few new iron plates from Irish Lifting, and I'm convinced the 20s are slightly heavier than the old (different, rubber-covered) 20s that have been there for 10-plus years... #SadTimesLads