Ask Powerlifter - Gents and gals of all goals welcome

TBH it doesn't look like you weigh (can't really remember what weight you posted now) but you look a lot lighter so it doesn't seem like you have anything to worry about.

Yeah, good timesaver

I definately understand where you're coming from and it does make a lot of sense.

By the by, did you ever get to represent Oxford?

question about deadlifting:

i find the worst bit to be the loading and deloading of the bar (three 20 kg plates each side atm), its annoying the way its on the floor, so when you put weights on you have to fight friction to get them on. And then when i'm dizzy after my final set, i have to sit down for 30 seconds before i'm fit to strip the weights off. By the time i've made 6 trips to the weight tree with 20kg plates i feel drained.


whats the best way to put plates on and off? any tips?

I'm not completely sure if I understand your query. But roll the plates on top of a 2.5kg plate. This means you can pull the final two plates off pretty easily. That or just use plates smaller than the 20kg plate. I generally do this for convenience of loading anyway but that is quite unusual (at least at UCL.)

question about deadlifting:

i find the worst bit to be the loading and deloading of the bar (three 20 kg plates each side atm), its annoying the way its on the floor, so when you put weights on you have to fight friction to get them on. And then when i'm dizzy after my final set, i have to sit down for 30 seconds before i'm fit to strip the weights off. By the time i've made 6 trips to the weight tree with 20kg plates i feel drained.


whats the best way to put plates on and off? any tips?

roll the inside plate onto a 1.25kg disk so the other two slide off.

I strip one side (7 20kg plates), then just pull the bar out of the other 7 and roll them as one to the weight stack.

okay. random physics question for you sir!

I did a Beastly 112.5 kg squat today (for reps), so thats 46.25kg each side. When i was done i took all the plates off the left hand side. Somehow the barbell defied the laws of physics: it has 46.25 kg on one side of the squat rack and no weight on the other, yet it didn't crash down to the floor on the weighted side! what gives?

Didyou not listen in Maths GCSE/As Level?

It's force *distance to give yourself a moment.

As you had a 7 ft olympic bar with the weight being evenly distibuted you treat that as being in the middle of the rack. Then times the weight 42.5 by the distance from the pivot point(Probably about 10 cm to the first plate compared to 3 foot away for the weight of the bar...

interesting. So how much weight would i need on one side to make the bar crash down?

interesting. So how much weight would i need on one side to make the bar crash down?

Depends where on the bar it is supported, if its out wide it will take a 50, if narrow then 50 usually makes it crash

Depends on how far away from the pivot point you put it...

It's done in Newton Metres.

Assuming a 7 foot bar with about 4 foot between the points of the rack and another 15cm then a foot for weights.(ish) then 40kg at the very end of the bar would flip it.

Say 60cm*20kg(weight of bar) would be keeping the bar down and then 40cm*40kg would produce a larger moment.

But to save injuries. Un-Rack both sides fairly evenly...

Yeah, its a 7 foot, 2.1 m long 20 kg bar. My gym is based on planet Earth, so g=9.81. The collars are say 0.4m cm long and the pivot points are 1.2 m apart. The weight plates avaliable are 20 kg, and have a thickness of 0.05m. All plates are assumed to be pushed as close to the centre of the barbell as possible. How much weight will i need now to bring it down?

(20)

It would flip when you put the 4th 20kg weight on.

Your bar moment is .6*20 so 120

Using your figures a 1.2 apart pivot points and .4m collars then you have a .05 gap between pivot and inside of the weights. on the 2.1 metre bar.

60*0.175 wouldn't make it fall but 80*.225 would.

Of course this may not be exactly accurate IRL as i doubt you accurately measured each part of your bar but that's the mathsy asnwer with my working out.

I'm going to stop clogging up Matt's thread now and get back to my lab reports...

cheers! i now know that its safe for me to take the plates off one side, and then the other without fear of the bar coming down.
until of course i start doing 4 plate squats/ BP's...

The thing is though, if the other weights are even about 5cm further away from the pivot point it makes a massive difference to the moment.

Basically. Remove both sides fairly evenly as if the bar gets pushed over to one side there could easily be lower weights crashing down and i don't want you trying to sue me and my internet maths.

Just use common sense...

If you have 3 plates on each side then remove 2 from one side, then the other 3 then the last one as the other 3 could flip the bar if it's across by about 2.5cm...

My friend said he can bench 130kg (1 MR) at BW 65KG. I'm the same BW and probably can bench 1RM maximum 100kg (I use dumbells for chest). How come there is a big difference..or is he jsut lieing?