Plate calculator: what to load on the bar

The load of your next set, bar included. For example 100 kg on the bench press.

A 20 kg bar by default. Untick the plates your gym does not have.

The same on each side, heaviest against the collar.

The drawing shows the whole bar: the same plates at each end, heaviest against the shoulder, lightest towards the outside, and the collar closing it off. The number announced is for one side only.

What the bar weighs once loaded, bar included. If the exact load does not exist with your plates, the tool gives the reachable load just below it, and tells you what is missing.

The table at the bottom lists the loadings you will see most often, from 40 to 200 kg. Three landmarks worth remembering: 60 kg is one 20 per side; 100 kg, two; 140 kg, three.

The Olympic bar weighs 20 kg. It is the one in every squat rack and on every bench. The 15 kg bar, thinner and shorter, is mostly seen in weightlifting and CrossFit. The 10 kg technique bar is for learning the movements. In a gym that counts in pounds, the equivalent of the 20 kg bar weighs 45 lb, a little over 20 kg.

In competition, plates have one colour per weight: 25 kg red, 20 blue, 15 yellow, 10 green, 5 white, then 2.5 red and 1.25 chrome. Gym plates are often all black, which is why you read the number before loading. The colours in the drawing above are the competition ones.

Heaviest first, against the stop, then the others going down. Both sides in the same order: it is easier to check at a glance, and the bar stays balanced.

In the rack, alternate sides as soon as it gets heavy, one plate on the left, one on the right. A bar loaded on one side only tips over. Unload the same way.

Collars are not counted by the tool: in a gym they weigh a few hundred grams. In powerlifting or weightlifting competition they weigh 2.5 kg each and are part of the announced load.

Without 1.25 kg plates, your smallest step is 5 kg: 2.5 on each side. That is a lot for progressing on the overhead press or the bench, where a few kilos separate a completed set from a failed one.

Two solutions. Fractional plates of 0.5 or 1 kg, which fit in a bag and give steps of 1 or 2 kg. Or add reps at the same load first, then move to the next step once you reach the target number of reps. Both work, provided you know what you did last time.

The target load does not come out of nowhere. It comes from what you lifted last time, or from your estimated max: the 1RM calculator gives the load to use for a given number of reps, and this tool tells you how to put it on the bar.

Once the set is done, log it. Next time you will know where to start from, and the question will no longer be "how much did I have on?" but "how much more do I add?".