45# standard thing is just bastardizing the kg weights.
55# disc is 25kg
45# (44# barbell) or 20kg
35# (33# barbell) or 15kg
225# loaded on a barbell is essentially 100kg
Stack reds if you're strong enough and have enough reds. But don't get anal about perfectly loading the most dense competition accurate bar, it's a pain in the ass constantly swapping out bumpers. Just slap on a green rather than removing a blue, and adding a red and a white or small reds and collars.
It depends entirely on what jumps you're making and what plates are available. I have a pretty full selection of plates at my gym so my loading is mostly based on not having to take plates off the bar.
For example, C&J up to 140 is loaded along with jumps
70 (reds)
100 (add yellow)
120 (add green)
130 (add white)
135 (add small red)
140 (add collar)
This is what I was looking for- thanks! So, do I ever use my 4 blues? I'm sure I will, but where do those usually come in?
(I'm overthinking this, I know-- bear with me 😬)
If you have access to a full set of plates or you’re in competition, you’ll never see 2 of the same plate on the bar except for reds. Any time they can change up to a bigger plate they will. Of course when you’re training you can do whatever you want. Generally I won’t use the reds in training for the sole reason of I don’t feel like rolling them out. If im going over 100 kilos I’ll have 2 blues plus whatever else on the end. If im squatting and go up to 150, I’ll go 2 blues, a yellow and a green if I don’t use the reds.
You'll use multiple blues if 40kg jumps make sense. Liao Hui always did back squats with blues up to 180kg then different plates according to the specifics of the day.
Load however you want but I just can't be bothered to constantly be taking plates on and off the bar. Maybe if I'm approaching a meet and I want to load competition style to emulate it a little better but 99% of the time I just load to minimize the work of loading.
Depends on the lift For snatch I use the 20’s because I’ll usually top out somewhere in the 80’s, so all I need to do is add 10’s. If I use the 25’s I’d have to use the 5’s to make 80 which my gym only has 2 pairs of 5’s so try to make those available to others. For C&J I’ll use 25’s pretty much always
“Base plate” should always be the heaviest you can have with the math working, then add change plates, imo. I like to follow comp loading. But really it’s preference. As long as you’re not stacking 10’s.
I disagree, I love stacking 10s, swapping out plates every damn set to be competition accurate is a pain the ass.
It also doesn't seem to affect competition performance. I once saw Liu Hao at Chinese nationals take his final warmup snatch of 170 using nothing but five medium thickness yellows no collars, then go out and snatch it as his opener minutes later with ultra skinny ZKC red x2, blue, 2.5s and collars. Was less than half the sleeve coverage of plates but looked exactly the same for him.
The "base" is reds.
1 red = 65 or 70
2 reds = 115 or 120
etc
If your gym only has blues/20s, then those will be your base. But if your gym has reds, use reds.
I know I’ll get killed, but for snatch I always go
Yellow-50kg
Add
Blue-90kg
Add
Green-110kg
Add
White-120kg
Add
Red and collars 130kg
Jon Broz got me doing it and I’ve been that way for 10 years😂
That's a nice setup because it doesn't use multiples of any plates you might be depriving others of, and doesn't need reds which might be taken up by someone strong pulling or squatting at the time. 40kg jump for the second snatch warmup is pretty spicy though.
I think I get what you are asking.
Most people either use blues or reds as their ‘big plate’. I prefer blues because they follow my increments better. I’m also not strong enough to be stacking more than 2 reds for my classic lifts so it just makes loading more awkward as I’d have to switch around plates.
In competition, the bar is loaded with the heaviest possible plates of course.
As long as you aren’t putting on a bunch of 10kg plates, I wouldn’t worry.
In competition and for larger stronger people, it's 25kg, red plates, slabs of beef. This is the same for powerlifting, though bodybuilders around the world tend to go with 20s as their closeness with weightlifting split off before the modern standardised plate system, and Americans continued to influence the rest of the world in bodybuilding but not weightlifting. Weirdest thing for me with American weights and their pounds is everything ends in 5 for some reason. Just looks messy and makes things much wordier than it needs to be.
In training and for weaker people, it can be any plate that makes the most sense for the weight being lifted, the target weight when going up in warmup sets, and the convenience factor of loading them. Most women and smaller men will load a green as their first plate for their first warmup set after the empty bar for most exercises for most or all of their career. So 35/40kg is perhaps the weightlifting home base so to speak, though 70kg for stronger men or squats and pulls for a wider range of people is another home base.
Weightlifting uses a lot more weight jumps than other lifting sports. We don't have the culture of starting with 60kg and slapping on a pair of blues for each set, and finishing with a simple round four blues at 180kg like a bodybuilder or strongman might. Weightlifting uses more percentage based weight selection and the technical lifts require more sets to reach heavier weights with decreasing weight jumps as the sets progress.
This is why you see Chinese lifters loading a lot of greens. 20kg jumps are an appropriate amount for several warmup sets, and easy to keep slapping them on vs swapping out for heavier bumpers. Then a small white once you get to 10kg jumps, swapped out with a green for the next set and so on. Then small reds or collars once you're at 5kg jumps, swapped out for small whites. Then finally any small change to go for kilo-specific sets. Then if you go to pulls after snatches, you can remove the change and keep stacking greens and then alternating whites as you go heavier.
Well damn-- I opted for the 2kg plates over the 2.5kg. I did get a pair of 0.5kg, so I can make it work. I spent enough on plates yesterday 😬-- I'll continue to add plates as opportunities arise on FB marketplace
> Weirdest thing for me with American weights and their pounds is everything ends in 5 for some reason. Just looks messy and makes things much wordier than it needs to be.
Lol, I get that. However, it's just as weird for Americans to hear someone's max lift be something "messy" like 143kg. 5's and 0's only, man!! 😁
Always ends in 5 because american weight system started when olympic weightlifting still used only 2.5kg increments. Ø/25 - 45/20 - 35/15 - 25/10 - 10/5 - 5/2.5 - 2.5/1.25
Very personal preference. I personally don’t like blue plates as much, so I go yellow 50 - yellow white 60 - red 70 - red green 90 - red yellow 100 - red yellow white 110 - 2 reds 120.
But honestly it doesn’t matter, plenty of Chinese athletes lift big weights with mostly yellow and green plates just fine. I just optimize for easier loading and better looking final big weight for Instagram.
In weightlifting it’s for sure, no question at all, the red 25kg.
In Powerlifting, with it’s American ‘underground’ roots, it may well be the 45lbs, maybe even the green 50kg. It can’t be the red 25kg, because that’s what the IPF use, proving it to be incorrect.
25 is base if you are strong enough
For back and front squats I start with the bar then put reds on, cause there is rarely ever a time where I’m doing anything less than thag even for warm ups.
So if we're using a men's bar the total amount on the bar is green - 40kg, yellow - 50kg, blue - 60kg, red - 70kg. There's also training bumper plates that put the bar to 30kg, but not everyone has those.
Now there's also white 5kg plates for when you get above 70kg. So you'd do reds + white 5's for 80kg. But people will often use the 5's to avoid having to take off and replace other bumpers. Except you probably shouldn't do that when it's greens because they might not be strong enough.
Hence it's really common to see people warming up cleans to start with greens, switch to yellow, then do yellow + white so they don't have to load blues, and then do yellow + green to avoid loading reds. Or they go for the full on faux pas of having a ton of greens on the bar.
But the cool kids just maximize amount of red on the bar.
I stack them whatever way that my loads need to be during my session. There's no hard and fast rule. Usually it's a mix of greens, yellows and blues. I hardly use the reds (since I don't make 50kg jumps) unless I need to.
You get used to it . For the first while I got messed up converting lbs to kg.
At home I had lb plates and the gym had kg . I ended up getting kg plates for the home gym .
https://preview.redd.it/c3e3jeg9866d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0eea7c150339dd1c8f23cc0ecac2113337e8267f Mmgood
https://preview.redd.it/dbulj42js86d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a4dcfaea352205caec160cc5b204a17b9dfdc93 I raise you
Wait, you guys use the blue and red plates?
The only major movement I'm not loading 25's on first is snatching, everything else starts with a nice slab of grade a uesaka beef
I use the 2.5 kg and 2.0 kg plates all the time!
I even use the green 1.0 and the white 0.5!
I use the thick red plastic 2.5 kg plates all the time for my snatch!
I dunno but I swear red and yellow is heavier than two blues.
That's because your brain sees them as a sideways stop light and you think you need to slow down That's why I spray paint all my plates green, for go
Listen to this man ^
Close but not quite. Spraying them green makes them 25 lbs and therefore lighter and easier to lift
My God You're an ingenious
45# standard thing is just bastardizing the kg weights. 55# disc is 25kg 45# (44# barbell) or 20kg 35# (33# barbell) or 15kg 225# loaded on a barbell is essentially 100kg
So... back to the question: is there a "standard" base plate in weightlifting? Should I be stacking blues... or reds?
Stack reds if you're strong enough and have enough reds. But don't get anal about perfectly loading the most dense competition accurate bar, it's a pain in the ass constantly swapping out bumpers. Just slap on a green rather than removing a blue, and adding a red and a white or small reds and collars.
Depends what you mean. Do what you want for training, but there is a regulated progression for comp.
Reds first
It doesnt matter. You can stack 10s if you wanted
Reds
It depends entirely on what jumps you're making and what plates are available. I have a pretty full selection of plates at my gym so my loading is mostly based on not having to take plates off the bar. For example, C&J up to 140 is loaded along with jumps 70 (reds) 100 (add yellow) 120 (add green) 130 (add white) 135 (add small red) 140 (add collar)
This is what I was looking for- thanks! So, do I ever use my 4 blues? I'm sure I will, but where do those usually come in? (I'm overthinking this, I know-- bear with me 😬)
If you have access to a full set of plates or you’re in competition, you’ll never see 2 of the same plate on the bar except for reds. Any time they can change up to a bigger plate they will. Of course when you’re training you can do whatever you want. Generally I won’t use the reds in training for the sole reason of I don’t feel like rolling them out. If im going over 100 kilos I’ll have 2 blues plus whatever else on the end. If im squatting and go up to 150, I’ll go 2 blues, a yellow and a green if I don’t use the reds.
You'll use multiple blues if 40kg jumps make sense. Liao Hui always did back squats with blues up to 180kg then different plates according to the specifics of the day.
Load however you want but I just can't be bothered to constantly be taking plates on and off the bar. Maybe if I'm approaching a meet and I want to load competition style to emulate it a little better but 99% of the time I just load to minimize the work of loading.
This is not what you're looking for this is his personal preference
nah, this is what I wanted.
Depends on the lift For snatch I use the 20’s because I’ll usually top out somewhere in the 80’s, so all I need to do is add 10’s. If I use the 25’s I’d have to use the 5’s to make 80 which my gym only has 2 pairs of 5’s so try to make those available to others. For C&J I’ll use 25’s pretty much always
“Base plate” should always be the heaviest you can have with the math working, then add change plates, imo. I like to follow comp loading. But really it’s preference. As long as you’re not stacking 10’s.
I disagree, I love stacking 10s, swapping out plates every damn set to be competition accurate is a pain the ass. It also doesn't seem to affect competition performance. I once saw Liu Hao at Chinese nationals take his final warmup snatch of 170 using nothing but five medium thickness yellows no collars, then go out and snatch it as his opener minutes later with ultra skinny ZKC red x2, blue, 2.5s and collars. Was less than half the sleeve coverage of plates but looked exactly the same for him.
The "base" is reds. 1 red = 65 or 70 2 reds = 115 or 120 etc If your gym only has blues/20s, then those will be your base. But if your gym has reds, use reds.
I know I’ll get killed, but for snatch I always go Yellow-50kg Add Blue-90kg Add Green-110kg Add White-120kg Add Red and collars 130kg Jon Broz got me doing it and I’ve been that way for 10 years😂
That's a nice setup because it doesn't use multiples of any plates you might be depriving others of, and doesn't need reds which might be taken up by someone strong pulling or squatting at the time. 40kg jump for the second snatch warmup is pretty spicy though.
Ya, and the jump is getting spicier at 46😂
I think I get what you are asking. Most people either use blues or reds as their ‘big plate’. I prefer blues because they follow my increments better. I’m also not strong enough to be stacking more than 2 reds for my classic lifts so it just makes loading more awkward as I’d have to switch around plates. In competition, the bar is loaded with the heaviest possible plates of course. As long as you aren’t putting on a bunch of 10kg plates, I wouldn’t worry.
In competition and for larger stronger people, it's 25kg, red plates, slabs of beef. This is the same for powerlifting, though bodybuilders around the world tend to go with 20s as their closeness with weightlifting split off before the modern standardised plate system, and Americans continued to influence the rest of the world in bodybuilding but not weightlifting. Weirdest thing for me with American weights and their pounds is everything ends in 5 for some reason. Just looks messy and makes things much wordier than it needs to be. In training and for weaker people, it can be any plate that makes the most sense for the weight being lifted, the target weight when going up in warmup sets, and the convenience factor of loading them. Most women and smaller men will load a green as their first plate for their first warmup set after the empty bar for most exercises for most or all of their career. So 35/40kg is perhaps the weightlifting home base so to speak, though 70kg for stronger men or squats and pulls for a wider range of people is another home base. Weightlifting uses a lot more weight jumps than other lifting sports. We don't have the culture of starting with 60kg and slapping on a pair of blues for each set, and finishing with a simple round four blues at 180kg like a bodybuilder or strongman might. Weightlifting uses more percentage based weight selection and the technical lifts require more sets to reach heavier weights with decreasing weight jumps as the sets progress. This is why you see Chinese lifters loading a lot of greens. 20kg jumps are an appropriate amount for several warmup sets, and easy to keep slapping them on vs swapping out for heavier bumpers. Then a small white once you get to 10kg jumps, swapped out with a green for the next set and so on. Then small reds or collars once you're at 5kg jumps, swapped out for small whites. Then finally any small change to go for kilo-specific sets. Then if you go to pulls after snatches, you can remove the change and keep stacking greens and then alternating whites as you go heavier.
Well damn-- I opted for the 2kg plates over the 2.5kg. I did get a pair of 0.5kg, so I can make it work. I spent enough on plates yesterday 😬-- I'll continue to add plates as opportunities arise on FB marketplace
> Weirdest thing for me with American weights and their pounds is everything ends in 5 for some reason. Just looks messy and makes things much wordier than it needs to be. Lol, I get that. However, it's just as weird for Americans to hear someone's max lift be something "messy" like 143kg. 5's and 0's only, man!! 😁
Always ends in 5 because american weight system started when olympic weightlifting still used only 2.5kg increments. Ø/25 - 45/20 - 35/15 - 25/10 - 10/5 - 5/2.5 - 2.5/1.25
Hi, Welcome to weightlifting. If you don’t like the Big Red weights, fuck you.
Just a new color... new math... new milestones
Both work. I think the less plates the better, and the heaviest plates go first. So depending on what you are aiming for, could be different.
I do whatever lets me use the least amount of 5kg or less plates
Very personal preference. I personally don’t like blue plates as much, so I go yellow 50 - yellow white 60 - red 70 - red green 90 - red yellow 100 - red yellow white 110 - 2 reds 120. But honestly it doesn’t matter, plenty of Chinese athletes lift big weights with mostly yellow and green plates just fine. I just optimize for easier loading and better looking final big weight for Instagram.
In weightlifting it’s for sure, no question at all, the red 25kg. In Powerlifting, with it’s American ‘underground’ roots, it may well be the 45lbs, maybe even the green 50kg. It can’t be the red 25kg, because that’s what the IPF use, proving it to be incorrect.
25 is base if you are strong enough For back and front squats I start with the bar then put reds on, cause there is rarely ever a time where I’m doing anything less than thag even for warm ups.
So if we're using a men's bar the total amount on the bar is green - 40kg, yellow - 50kg, blue - 60kg, red - 70kg. There's also training bumper plates that put the bar to 30kg, but not everyone has those. Now there's also white 5kg plates for when you get above 70kg. So you'd do reds + white 5's for 80kg. But people will often use the 5's to avoid having to take off and replace other bumpers. Except you probably shouldn't do that when it's greens because they might not be strong enough. Hence it's really common to see people warming up cleans to start with greens, switch to yellow, then do yellow + white so they don't have to load blues, and then do yellow + green to avoid loading reds. Or they go for the full on faux pas of having a ton of greens on the bar. But the cool kids just maximize amount of red on the bar.
Hoard as many change plates as possible
I stack them whatever way that my loads need to be during my session. There's no hard and fast rule. Usually it's a mix of greens, yellows and blues. I hardly use the reds (since I don't make 50kg jumps) unless I need to.
You get used to it . For the first while I got messed up converting lbs to kg. At home I had lb plates and the gym had kg . I ended up getting kg plates for the home gym .
Minimal number of disks to reach weight. Heaviest available inside. Multiple 25kg reds are allowed.