Olympic Weights

Anytime you happen to be watching a benchpress competition, and Olympic weightlifting competition or any other serious effort to move some metal, you're going to be looking at an Olympic weight set. Olympic weights are the gold standard for powerlifting, benchpress competitions and pretty much any real bodybuilding work. Why is this? Read on and find out.

Olympic weight barbells

Probably the 1st Pl. to start is with the bar. Olympic weight bars have several advantages over standard barbells. To start with, they all have a standard weight - 45 pounds . This corresponds to the weight of the largest standard Olympic weight plates. Olympic barbells are all 7 feet in length. They all have a 52 inch span inside the callers, which leaves plenty of room for even the largest weightlifter to properly position his hands. The bar inside the callers is usually neural to provide for a better grip.

The other feature that really sets Olympic barbell apart from the standard weight for is the portion of the bar that actually holds the Olympic plates. Usually 16 inches long, these outside portions of the barbell actually rotate on ball bearings. This is a huge advantage when you're moving a lot of weight. It allows the weight plates to spend freely, which adds to stability.

This probably seems counterintuitive and I guess it is. What's going on when you do a squat for a benchpress is not a completely linear motion. Your body does not move up and down in a straight line. To the extent that you are moving the bar in an arc, or rotating your hands or wrists in any way you are actually trying to spin the bar and the attached plates. When you stop to consider that a comment warm-up weight for an Olympic barbell squat is 225 pounds, you can see how having all of that I am rotating is going to interfere with proper weightlifting form.

When selecting an Olympic bar, first of all make sure they can handle the amount of weight that you want to move. Aside from that the major feature separating quality from economy bars is the ball bearings inside the sleeve.

The first time that you see in Olympic bench, you'll notice that it's a little bit different from standard home weightlifting or fitness benches. To start with, you have a lot more room between the upright. This is to accommodate the larger Olympic bar. It's also a huge plus for larger lifters. In addition to providing more room for variations in hand spacing, we can also now include a wider and more stable platform for the lifters torso. This is also a big plus. I hate doing dumbbell presses or flies on a bench that is so narrow that I feel like I'm lying on a 4x4.

Olympic workout benches are also usually much heavier and sturdier than standard weight benches in order to accommodate the expected heavier loads.

The plates that make up an Olympic weight set are also a little different from what you may be used to. A typical Olympic weight set will have plates ranging from 2 1/2 to 45 pounds. The first thing you notice about them is that the hole in the middle of the plate is much larger to accommodate the rotating sleeve of the Olympic bar. The next thing is that the plates usually have a thicker ring around the RAM to facilitate easier handling.

Rubber Olympic weights

One of the things that has happened in recent years is the plate manufacturers have begun to add some custom features to their products. Nowadays it's not unusual to see rubber coated or rubber edged Olympic weights. He said the advantage of being less noisy and less apt to damage a concrete floor in your local gym. In my opinion, this is a feature that you can do without for a home Olympic weight set.

You'll also notice that some Olympic sets include weight plates that are not actually round. Usually these are octagonal. Some people like these because when you lower the bar to the floor, the barbell does not tend to roll away.

I guess I'm just old school, but I don't like this, and here's why: when I'm finishing up a heavy set of deadlocks and I lower the bar to the floor I just don't like the feeling when I hit one of the points octagonal plate. It makes the bar move either towards or away from me as the plate rules onto one of its flat sides. This may not sound like a big issue, but if you have several hundred pounds on the bar and you are exhausted from a hard set, the last thing you want is your barbells smacking into your shins.

I recommend that you stay with vendors who have a reputation in the industry, and are offering their products to reputable source. Amazon.Com is a good place to start your search as his eBay.

The usual caveats about buying used fitness equipment will apply their. Many of the higher-end manufacturers will also have excellent websites that allow you to compare multiple features and specifications.

A final note: if you are serious at all about weightlifting, even on an intermittent basis, even if you just will lose weight -- I recommend that you go with Olympic set. You will get heavy duty equipment that will most likely far exceed any demands that you may place upon it and will last you for a lifetime

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