How to Select a High Quality Olympic Weight Set for Olympic and Power Lifting
When you decide to start looking for a quality weight lifting set, there are a number of criteria to keep in mind to ensure you can find a set that is worth your investment. Whether you should buy steel weight plates or bumper plates is the first issue, and the second issue is the quality of the barbell.
The initial factor to consider is actually if the weight set comes with steel weights or rubberized bumper plates. Steel weight plates tend to be cheaper, and therefore you will probably just need to think about bumper plates in the event you plan on performing a lot of Olympic lifting.
Rubber bumper plates enable you to drop the barbell without leading to damage to your barbell as well as a floor. For that reason, they’re perfect for Olympic weight lifting. Whenever you view the Olympic lifters on television, they are making use of rubber bumper plates. They also make use of the kind of rubber bumper plates that have a large metal disc at the center, surrounded by a layer of rubber. These are better than the bumper plates that are mostly rubber using a tiny metal ring at the center. The reason for this is that this large steel disc helps to ensure that they last longer, while the small metal band inside cheaper quality bumper plates can easily deform as time passes and become useless.
The second factor to consider in the Olympic weight set will be the quality of the barbell. Some Olympic weight sets will include a barbell that doesn’t have collars that spin well, and thus is going to be totally useless for Olympic lifts. An excellent Olympic weight set will include a superior quality barbell that can be used for Olympic lifting. If you are really serious about executing movements like the snatch or clean and jerk, you should perhaps invest in a bearing barbell, which will rotate much easier compared to the normal bushing barbell. If you will primarily be performing deadlifts, squats, and presses, then a bushing barbell will probably be excellent.
The difference involving a bushing barbell and a bearing barbell is due to the turn of the sleeves when they’re loaded with weight. A bearing bar will spin much easier and thus much quicker when you whip the bar up and over your head. This can be important since the less difficult the sleeves spin, not as much stress is placed on your wrists. A good quality bushing barbell, however, is fine for mixed use between the quicker Olympic lifts, and also the slow power lifts.
The mixture of a great set of bumpers and a good quality barbell will allow you to build muscle and strength quicker than you believed achievable.
Ryan Lestenson Shanezorg is a workout trainer and fitness fanatic. You can visit his website that has reviews on Olympic equipment here: Olympic weight set. He also runs a site that contains useful information on bumper plates here: bumper plates
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