I got very frustrated today!!

[LJJ]

I was at the gym doing my normal workout on my lunch hour. Instead of the powerlifting bar I normally use, I used the one olympic bar in the gym. When I was warming up on my press, I put on 65 pounds (which was my heavy work load on my last press day at 5x3) and struggled with it, failing after 3 on the first set. On the second attempt I failed after 2. At that point I started going through the list of things I probably did wrong to affect my recovery, and really pissing myself off.

I moved to power cleans. My last workset at 5x3 was 85 pounds. I failed after 1 rep.

My gym is new (6 weeks old) and they have 6 powerlifting bars and 1 olympic bar. I have been assured by the owner that their weights are all 45 pounds, even though I expressed concerns that the weight was different. Up until last week there was no scale in the gym, so I couldn't see for myself. I haven't given much thought to it until today.

After my last fail, I weighed the olympic bar at 44.5 pounds, and 2 powerlifting bars at 37.5 pounds and 38 pounds respectively.

Is this a common phenomena? I am a little ticked because I have been calculating my lifts with what I thought was a 45 pound bar. Now I realize I am 8 pounds below what I was doing. AAAAAAGGGHHHH. So much for my bad ass image of myself!

[melody]

OMG that is really frustrating. Don't let it get you down, just see if the gym owner will allow you to label them or just always use the olympic bar.

[LJJ]

I will try to use the ONE olympic bar. It is easily identifiable but not always available.

[R-Squared]

The oly bar would typically be in kilos rather than lbs, so its actually a 20kg bar. Powerlifting bars can unfortunately vary wildly, especially when purchasing cheap ones, most of the time they will just say "Standard" weight, which if you dig around for reviews of the actual bar model will turn out to be somewhere from 38-45lb. I was looking at buying cheap Cap barbells, I looked into it pretty heavily and (knowingly) ended up with a 42lb bar... who knows why they wouldn't make them more standardized.

[veryhrm]

Let the owner know. I think he'll be surprised. Maybe he'll even be able to send them back and get some real 45lb bars. If they're not the right weight... they prob suck in other ways too.

maybe push some dual user B&R bars from rogue :-)

edit: when i say 45lbs i mean either 45lbs or 20kg

[stonerider]

one of the many reasons i feel so fortunate to train at the gym i do

they let me keep my olympic bar there along with all of my bumper plates

i only use my bar and plates when i train, and for 2.5,5,10lbs i bring in my own set of each in a gym bag (along with fractionals)

i even had to send two of my bumper plates back because they were 3lbs off in each direction, and i finally noticed it one day when i was pressing and felt like one side was harder than the other

i feel your frustration loud and clear

[Marotta]

[jillingworth]

I found this problem with the bumper plates at my gym. I went in one day after hours, weighted them, and wrote the weight in white paint on their sides. It helps, sometimes I feel more like an accountant than a weight lifter trying to figure out what I need on each side to hit a specific weight.

Definitely let the owner know. Hopefully they will care.

[LJJ]

Those are great suggestions! I also have a problem with the 10 pound plates. Half don't fit the diameter of the bar. I'm going to bring a paint marker so I can easily tell.

@Marotta - I love the suggestion of the pretty bra. Buying one of these after every frustrating training session has got to make a girl feel better, right?

[stonerider]

if that was sarcastic, LJJ, i'm lolling