Choosing Between Bumper Plates & Olympic Plates

Hello my name is Gabriel Fernandez sales representative at Best Used Gym Equipment.

Today’s  frequently asked question is what is the difference between Bumper Plates, Olympic Plates and standard plate. To be honest this is a great question, and there is a valid reason for the plates to be different other than the sizes.

What are bumper plates?

Let’s start with Bumper Plates. The main reason Bumper Plates were created was to prevent damage to the floor and for safety. Bumper Plates are used for Olympic weightlifting, Olympic weightlifting consists of the snatch, the front press, clean and jerk, dead lift and a Squat. These lifts that I have mentioned are designed to be either lift over your head, or a lift from the floor and to be dropped. In the late 60s an European company decided to add rubber to the metal plates because the metal plates were destroying platforms that were built of wood and because the plates themselves were breaking.

By allowing the lifter to drop the weight on the floor allowed them to feel more comfortable instead of trying to catch your mishap or Muscle fatigue during the lift or simply trying to rack the weight is where normally these injuries occur. In the dead lift for instance you are required to lift the barbell off the floor lock your shoulder into a straight up position and then drop the weight. Another safety feature that I find really interesting is that bumper plates are much larger than Olympic plates to save Lifter‘s necks if a lifter did a backwards fall with the barbell it will not fall on his neck.

I could not believe how much information I have found on (Bumper Plates). Bumper Plates are larger than an Olympic plate, and they are all the same size in diameter. Bumper plates come in 5lb, 10lb, 25lb, 35lb, 45lb, and a 55lb. They are all the same diameter but obviously a different width. Another huge difference of (Bumper Plates) and Olympic plates is the cost for (Bumper Plates) is remarkably more expensive.

What are Olympic plates?

Now let’s talk a little about Olympic plates. Olympic plates comes in 2.5LB, 5lb, 10lb, 25lb, 45lb and 100lb and in steel or rubber coating which seems to be the best bang for your buck, and urethane which is extremely expensive, but it can take a beating. The one Common between (Bumper Plates) and Olympic plates is that they both have a center hole of approximately 2 inches. An Olympic bar has sleeves at the end of it which holds (Bumper Plates) and Olympic plates.

With that being said, this allows us to talk a little about standard plates. Standard plates have a 1-inch hole in the middle of the plate. These plates are designed for interchangeable for example like dumbbell handles or aerobic bars. Standard plates are mostly used for home use or aerobics classes not really for a commercial environment also because the bars themselves are usually made out of aluminum or a steel rod.  They are also hard to grip now that’s just my opinion.  Standard plates are much smaller than both Olympic and (Bumper Plates).

Conclusion

Well we have briefly touched on the differences of plates. I did not mention anything about disk plates because they are rarely seen and mostly used only for weightlifting competition. I could have been a little more technical in regard to the differences of plates but this seems to be the basic description for the differences of plates. I hope this helped and thank you reading our blog.