Best Mid-Level Plates ~ $500

[Peter_Klim]

BTW, yes, those Urethane Iron Grip plates DID get marked up the last few days. Right now I using my work PC (I noticed the price increase on my home PC) and went to the site and saw that they dropped the price back down. Then I refreshed the browser and the page looked exactly the same except the price went back up (cached page).

[Peter_Klim]

Yes it could be an issue, I used to have a "Value Priced" bar with 2.0 inch sleeves and couldn't get my ivankos on that bar. Fortunately, "I have a guy" that lives not to far from me who buys and sells used stuff as a hobby and he traded out my "Value" bar for a little better quality bar with me giving him an extra 5 bucks for his trouble.

Thanks. I didn't notice you sneaking your reply in so quickly between my 2 posts until now

So just when I thought I knew exactly which plates I was going to purchase I have to see if I really want to risk the Premium plates not fitting my economy bar...Hmmm...someone posted earlier that the HO version (bust starting today, adamant barbell's site lists them as "Economy") that even though they have more of a sloppy fit, they are still tighter than the Iron Grip. If I was really set on the Iron Grip and happy with using them at the gym, then I should be more than happy with these economy plates...but I would spend more for a nicer fit...I never used my economy EZ bar so maybe I could return it, but it's been about a month...not sure what to do...

[matchsprint]

From adamant's site on the similar looking (to American Barbell's) interlocking Troy plates:

"The unique interlocking feature leaves no gaps between plates of the same size, allowing you to load more weight than other brands of plates with grip holes."
http://www.adamantbarbell.com/Olympi...-Plate-GO-45lb

So it's not really to lock them up to spin as one unit, but to get the plates closer.

Peter, think about the iron cut out to make the notches that the next plate fits into. Where does that iron go? It either makes the rest of the rim deeper, which accomplishes nothing, or fills in the recess between plates inside the flange. If it makes the rest of the rim deeper, which some interlocking plates do, it actually means fewer plates can be loaded on a sleeve. If it reduces the recess between plates inside the flange (all the air space left when the flanges touch but the central part of the plate does not) it's simply taking you back to a thinner flat plate like a competition plate, which is the ultimate design for packing maximum weight on a sleeve. One can't do better than a competition plate unless one makes the plates a larger diameter or makes them from something heavier than iron. But for interlocking plates, it's simply a way to redistribute weight, not to get more plates loaded. One can stack a lot of Troy GO plates on a sleeve because they are pretty close to a competition plate in thickness throughout the diameter of the plate -- the flanges are shallow and the "interlocking" notches are shallow, so all the weight is distributed throughout the width of the plate. Getting close to the shape of a competition plate.

What Adamant says is precisely what we're talking about here. It allows one to have grip holes and to have the plate lifted slightly to get fingers under the rim, but (like the Troy GO plates) basically creates a narrow plate almost like a competition plate, so one can load more plates but have the advantage of handholds. You are precisely correct on this. Good point.

[matchsprint]

So just when I thought I knew exactly which plates I was going to purchase I have to see if I really want to risk the Premium plates not fitting my economy bar...Hmmm...someone posted earlier that the HO version (bust starting today, adamant barbell's site lists them as "Economy") that even though they have more of a sloppy fit, they are still tighter than the Iron Grip. If I was really set on the Iron Grip and happy with using them at the gym, then I should be more than happy with these economy plates...but I would spend more for a nicer fit...I never used my economy EZ bar so maybe I could return it, but it's been about a month...not sure what to do...

For what it's worth, the sleeves on most cheap bars these days are made to be fairly undersized rather than oversized. We shop for used inexpensive bars (CAP and cheaper) for a high school program for kids that are simply not going to treat good bars properly and shouldn't be doing heavy lifts yet anyway. They drop bars all the time in racks. I don't recall when we last encountered an oversized cheap bar. We almost always see undersized bars and oversized center holes on plates. Even Iron Grip's standard bar for commercial gyms, a chrome bar with a hex sleeve collar, seems to measure out at 1.89 inches pretty consistently, or a full tenth inch shy of two inches. Their plates, both urethane and painted iron, tend to measure out at almost 2.1 inches inside diameter. Their plates tend to be on the thick side, which helps compensate for what in a thin competition plate would be almost intolerable slop. We see even greater differences with cheaper bars. After a couple dud buys it was worth it to us to buy an inexpensive vernier caliper to measure both inside and outside diameters when we went shopping for used equipment. You don't need much and it saves a lot of grief.