Incremental improvements

Fractional plates for weightlifting seem expensive right? And why are some friction plates and others not? Do you even need them or can you just make 2.5kg jumps in weight?

Short answer; yes. Get some.

Long answer: Yes, you need some. Get some immediately. You don’t NEED friction plates and you don’t NEED to spend loads of money, but hey I didn’t NEED that third coffee …

Weightlifting competitions have a certain way of loading a barbell so that;

A) there are 1kg jumps allowable meaning you can win by the smallest of margins.

B) the colour coded plates are easily viewed and the load ascertained by the referees and spectators

C) the way the bar is loaded in competition (using collars that weigh 2.5kg) means that to be able to see all the plates anything smaller than a 2.5kg disc sits OUTSIDE the collar and therefore has the potential to slide off. Welcome friction plates - that do not slide easily.

So if you’re not holding competitions in your gym/garden/garage do you need them? Not really. At least not the friction plates. You can get regular ones (cheaper ones) that sit inside a normal clip and don’t go anywhere during your lifts. BUT, if you’re a bit lazy and/or don’t use clips (which you SHOULD - an ongoing argument with one of my lifters at the time of writing) I’d get the friction plates anyway.

Progressive overload

An important feature of your training for strength, muscle mass and even conditioning is the principle of progressive overload. You must continually strive to do more work. More weight lifted being the key to the former.

Lets imagine that one week you can do 5 sets of 3 squats at 120kg. The next week you try to do 1 set of 125kg then 4 sets of 120kg. You can achieved progressive overload. The following week you do 2 sets of 125kg and 3 sets of 120kg. Again progress. If the body could maintain this linear progression for a while you’d end up being able to do 5x5 at 125kg right? Sounds good and reasonable.

Tried adding 5kg to a snatch triple? How did that feel?

Whilst maybe sensible on some lifts, 5kg is actually quite a big increase once you’ve been training a while. More realistic is that you could add 1-2kg on a set of snatches, 1-3kg on a set of multiple clean and jerks or some of the accessory lifts like presses and rows. It’s better to add 1kg than no kg’s.

Being able to make small regular increases to your lifts is a much better method for long term success than the occasional large jump. Not only in terms of strength increases but also in reducing injury risk by better and more more gradually preparing your tissues for additional load.

If money is any issue then I’d look for second hand or the cheapest brands. A kilo is still a kilo. Brands matter the least when it comes to fractional plates and it’s more about how it looks and if you give a crap. I like weightlifting stuff so got a cool set of ZKC fractionals, some Rogue ones and the better known Eleiko’s. Honestly there’s no difference but I’ll probably get some Weightlifting House ones too as they look cool.

I’d suggest getting pairs of the following if you can’t get the full set right off the bat; 0.5kg, 1.5kg, 2.5kg. With that you can make 1kg, 3kg, 4kg and 5kg jumps so you can still progress and still hit PB’s!