How to Add Weights When Lifting a Barbell
Pop Quiz: You want to lift 185 pounds. How many plates do you put on each side of the barbell and what size? If you didn’t immediately answer “of course, 45 and 25”, perhaps a little introductory course on plate math will help.
Yes, you count the bar
Let’s start with the basics. When you tell someone how much weight you lifted, that weight includes the total weight you were holding. The bar is part of this.
In most US gyms, a standard barbell is seven feet long and weighs either 45 pounds or 20 kilograms (which is 44 pounds). If the rest of your weight plates are in pounds, let’s assume it’s 45 pounds.
If your gym has different sized bars , check the weight label on the end or ask someone. If your gym has 1kg plates or is a CrossFit box, you should know that Olympic-style weightlifting is done with a 20kg barbell for men (which is pretty close to 45lbs) and a shorter, narrower 15kg barbell for men. women that CrossFitters typically estimate the weight to be 35 pounds, although between us it’s closer to 33. (First of all, why do women’s barbells even exist? There’s a whole story about that, which I explain here .)
Your gym may also have lighter bars that can weigh 25 pounds or even 10. Home gyms sometimes use a 1-inch wide bar without the wider collars you see on Olympic or powerlifting bars; these bars are lighter and you should weigh yours or check the packaging to see what you have.
If you lift weights on a Smith machine or any other machine, do not try to figure out how much the machine or its barbell weighs. Each machine is different, they are almost never labeled, and the weights will not necessarily be the same as on a barbell. Just write down the total weight you put on it – that’s enough for record keeping.
What about clamps or collars that hold weight? They are usually not heavy enough to be included in the calculations, but if they are large and you know their weight, feel free to include them.
Here’s a formula to tell you how much weight is on the barbell.
This may be obvious, but I want to make sure this information is easy to find: To find the total weight you put on the bar, stack the weights on one end, double that number, and add the weight of the bar. .
So if you have 45 and 25 at each end, add 25 + 45 to get 70, double that number (140) and add the weight of the barbell (140 + 45 = 185).
However, most often you start with the number you want to lift and then you have to load the bar accordingly. Start training and you’ll soon be able to load the barbell correctly without thinking about it too much. Here’s how:
Remember the common weights in pounds.
Let’s say we’re lifting a 45-pound barbell. You’ll end up using the same combinations over and over again, and those numbers will start to look very familiar:
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55 lbs: 5 lb plate per side.
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65 lbs: 10 lb plate per side.
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95 lbs: 25 lb plate on each side.
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135 lbs: 45 lb plate on each side.
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225 lbs: Two 45 lb plates on each side.
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315 lbs: Three 45 lb plates on each side.
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405 lbs: Four 45 lb plates on each side.
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495 lbs: Five 45 lb plates per side.
During your warm-up before lifting, you can perform calculations while wearing plates. Let’s say you do a set with just the empty strip, then 10 on each side (that’s 65), then a second pair of 10s (85), then change both to 25 (we’re now up to 95). ), and you want to do the next set with 100 pounds. You know you need another five pounds, so find a couple of 2.5 pound pancakes and you’re good to go.
Memorize common weights in kilograms.
Some gyms list scales in kilograms rather than pounds. (Some people have both, so be careful!) The principles are the same: count the beats and remember the common combinations. Racing style bumpers and steel plates are often color coded, so I’ve included the colors below:
On the women’s barbell 15 kg:
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A pair of 10 kg plates (green) = 35 kg.
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Pair 15 (yellow) = 45 kg.
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Pair of 20’s (blue) = 55 kg.
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Pair 25 (red) = 65 kg.
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Two pairs of 25 = 115 kg.
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Three pairs of 25 = 165 kg.
Or if you are using a 20kg men’s barbell:
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A pair of 10 kg plates (green) = 40 kg.
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Pair 15 (yellow) = 50 kg.
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Pair of 20’s (blue) = 60 kg.
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Pair 25 (red) = 70 kg.
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Two pairs of 25 = 120 kg.
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Three pairs of 25 = 170 kg.
If you’re bouncing between pounds and kilograms, it’s helpful to be able to convert them in your head. Multiply kilograms by 2.2 to get pounds, or divide pounds by 2.2 to get kilograms . (Kilograms are “bigger” than pounds, so the same object will weigh fewer kilograms and more pounds.) Some numbers are perfectly symmetrical:
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5 kg = 11 lbs
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10 kg = 22 lbs
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20 kg = 44 lbs
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30 kg = 66 lbs
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40 kg = 88 lbs
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50 kg = 110 lbs
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100 kg = 220 lbs
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150 kg = 330 lbs
I lift in one gym where everything is in kilograms, and in another where everything is in pounds. Luckily, I do different lifts at each location, so I just keep my Olympic lift records in kilograms and my powerlifting ones in pounds. I recommend this approach rather than trying to convert units every time you lift as you do.
If you’re not used to working with kilograms, start by remembering just one number: your own weight in kilograms. This allows you to quickly make decisions like, “That’s heavier than me,” or “That’s about half my weight,” without having to pull out a calculator.
Apps and calculators help
Yes, there are calculators that will do all the work for you. I track my workouts on the Strong app and there is a little button that tells you how to load the bar for your lift. RackMath (free for iOS and Android) looks like a good option for a standalone app.
The online equivalent is this calculator from ExRx . Note that you must tell any calculator how heavy your barbell is, what size plates you have, and how many of each. At the gym, the number of weight plates may be unlimited, but in a home gym, there may be certain numbers that you just can’t reach because you don’t have the right weight plate combination.