How to Gain Pounds When You’re Used to Pounds
When I first went up to the gym with some pounds, my honed math skills suddenly became useless. The rooms were different, the plates were a funny color, but I soon found myself enjoying it.
Here’s what you need to know if you are checking out a new gym, relocating to another country, or changing the sport to a more trendy and international one .
Know the rule of thumb for converting
First, what is a kilogram? This is an amount (not weight), approximately equal to a liter of water. It used to be technically defined as the mass of a particular piece of metal in France; now it’s something about Planck’s constant . But now none of this matters. In Earth’s gravity, this is equivalent to about 2.2 pounds.
Sounds too annoying to do it in your head? Think again. To convert kilograms to pounds, simply double the number and then add 10%. Like this:
- 10 kilograms = 22 pounds
- 20 kg = 44 lbs
- 30 kg = 66 lbs
- 40 kg = 88 lbs
- 50 kg = 110 lbs
It’s kind of beautiful. How does this work with large numbers?
- 80 kg = 176 lbs (160 + 16, okay?)
- 100 kg = 220 lbs
- 150 kg = 330 lbs
- 200 kg = 440 lbs
You get the idea. Just remember that a kilogram is more than a pound, so numbers in kilograms are usually small and numbers in pounds are large. Happy to have lifted 100 pounds? Great, but it’s only 45 kg.
Anyway, if all else fails, take a calculator and multiply or divide by 2.2.
Or another rule of thumb: If you are used to multiplying by 45 pounds (because the power bar is 45 pounds and the big ones are 45 pounds), just know that 45 pounds is about 20 kilograms.
… But don’t switch back and forth during your workout
These rules of thumb are fine when you need to transform, but during training, don’t try to count every movement in your head.
If in the foreseeable future you are going to train in kilograms, you should just learn to think in kilograms. As if you were studying a foreign language: it is worth being able to find the right words without having to refer to the dictionary every time.
When I started Olympic weightlifting, exercise was as new to me as the system of units. So it was like playing with Monopoly’s money: these numbers mean something in the gym, but it doesn’t really matter what they mean outside of it. I could gain 35 kg in a few weeks after the start. How many pounds are 35 kilograms? What’s the difference? Now we are talking about kilograms.
After all, you may need to convert back and forth, but stick to the same set of units for day-to-day workouts. One thing to remember, however, is that if you are used to gaining weight by adding 10 pounds at a time, do not add 10 kg and think that you are doing the same jump. Five kilos is more like what you are looking for. (5 kg = 11 lbs)
Learn the colors
Pound plates are often black or smooth, but kilogram plates – especially bumper plates you’ll find in Olympic weightlifting gyms – are color-coded as standard:
- red – 25 kg
- blue – 20
- yellow – 15
- green – 10
- white – 5
If there are smaller colored plates, each one is 10 times lighter than its larger counterparts:
- small reds – 2.5
- little blues 2
- small yellow – 1.5
- greens 1
- small white 0.5
White 5kg plates are usually smaller than full-size plates, but you can’t confuse them with 0.5kg plates, which are tiny.
Many gyms have full-size versions of 5kg and 2.5kg plates that will come in large red and white. You can tell the difference between the 25kg “big reds” and the 2.5kg ones, because one of them is monstrously heavy, while the other looks like a toy. They are also labeled.
(This can lead to funny Insta videos if the label is hidden from the camera – I recall one in which a woman was twisting a bar that I think had four red plates on the side. That would be about 40 kg, not 220.)
Learn to recognize what you see on the panel
Since color-coded plates are standard, you will quickly learn to determine how much weight is on a bar based on what colors you see. When I lift a 15 kg female barbell, I know that if I pull on a couple of grills, I lift 35; yellow – 45; blues, 55; and big reds, 65.
On a 20kg column, greens are 40, yellows are 50, blue are 60, and large reds are 70.
Two red plates are 110 kg on a 20 kg bar or 105 on a woman’s bar. (In Olympic weightlifting, women use a thinner bar because it flexes more with lighter weights and is easier to grip with smaller arms. In other strength sports, including powerlifting, everyone uses the same bar.)
If you are watching a weightlifting or powerlifting competition, remember that collars add 2.5kg on each side, or 5kg in total. (In the gym, most of us go without collars or use small ones that we shouldn’t count on.)
Once you get the hang of it, counting in kilograms is no more difficult than it is in pounds – and it may be easier for you. In the meantime, if you have any problems, print this weight in kilograms chart and paste it into your workout diary.