If you paid for 0.625 plates and they are 0.5, make sure your scale is correct and send the goddamn things back. You can make do with them, but they are not what you paid for.
Member
how exact does micro loading have to be?
Hi Rip,
I've just gotten a pair of micro plates that are supposed to be 0.625 kg each (to allow me to make 1.25 kg or c.2.5 lb jumps). They are actually < 0.5 kg each, so my jumps on e.g. OHP will go:
52.5 kg
<53.5 kg
55 kg
<56 kg
57.5 kg
etc
So a <2 lb jump one session, followed by a >3 lb jump the next. Is this something to be concerned about at all, or is this close enough to linear progression that it'll work pretty much just as well?
Thanks
TMPHBITEU
If you paid for 0.625 plates and they are 0.5, make sure your scale is correct and send the goddamn things back. You can make do with them, but they are not what you paid for.
Member
Thanks, Rip.Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe
Can you recommend a good supplier for more exact microplates? What do you use to load 2.5 lbs (1.25 lbs / side)?
Member
I use the exact same way of microloading (actually I paid for 0,5 kg plates) and it works quite well.
Guess the plates in my gym are not that 100% accurate anyway.
Member
I have some old 1" hole 0.5kg plates that i put on my Oly BB by looping string through the hole enabling me to slide it onto the BB between the Oly discs and the collars. Works fine. I refuse to pay £16 per kilo for a fractional plates. It's pure exploitation - nothing to do with 'market forces'.
TMPHBITEU
This is exactly what market forces do.
Member
I think you under-estimate the ability of modern manufacturing industries to produce goods.
'Market forces' sounds like an easy explanation, but considering this shit is manufactured in China and with enormous resources and with no lack of iron or manpower, it doesn't cut it. I know that you are stuck to this reductio ad Libertarianism whenever no other explanation is acceptable to you, but the simple fact is that businesses take every and any opportunity to maximize their profits. In fact the economic concept of 'Profit Maximization' is taught in colleges and universities all over the West as a current doctrine. Free
market' inevitably means free to be rapacious when the opportunity presents itself. Profit maximization - Wikipedia
I can't speak for outlets in the US, but here in Britain there is no evidence of outlets having trouble sourcing their weight plates wholesale from their usual Chinese suppliers. These businesses know the gyms have been closed for a long time and that there is a huge new market of 'desperate' trainees who need to kit out their domiciles. A desperate consumer is a captive consumer. Come one Rip, you're a businessman. I know you don't share that rapacious mindset, but this isn't the 1950s anymore. Ozzy and Harriet ain't coming back and the ethics of retail business are no longer about a fair price for a quality product. Those days are gone. If businesses truly believed in that they would have had the ethical fortitude to take a stand against the out-sourcing of manufacturing to China in the first place. But the lure of greater profits from lower labour cost was too sweet to resist.
TMPHBITEU
And despite these rapacious greedy corporate capitalists, somehow you decided not to do business with them. I guess the decision about the value of the plates remained with you.
Member
I thought that this was ensured by the competition on free market.
And I always thought that you run buissnes for profit. (If you happened to be passionate about it - good for you)
And I thought that the sudden spike in prices of gym equipment that occurred could have been explained by unpredictable spike in demand.
Imagine those speculant basterds buying gym equipment in January like they did bought protection mask and hand sanitizer.
✓ Member
2018 microplates for sale, METRIC now available This is where I got my set of microplates. I sent Mr. Miller a check, and he sent me the microplates.
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