Weights, Bars, and Storage
Free weights (Freeweights) - The original and ultimate method of building great physiques and demonstrating strength. Free weights can be created from many materials, but typically cast iron is by far the most frequently used. Cheap catalogue home use weights often take the form of bulky plastic weights filled with sand or water and hollow tube bars. Great for junior weight training, but lousy if you wish to train seriously. Olympic weights almost always used in commercial gyms and usually purchased by anyone wanting to set up a quality home gym. Dumbells (dumbbells) are a nice addition, but not essential as pretty much every muscle group can be exercised with a barbell and weights, but any decent commercial gym should have a full range of dumbbells and of course weights racks and dumbell racks to keep things tidy. My tip for the home weight trainer is to snap up any 2nd hand cast weights and plates as you come across them. The cost of cast iron and steel is rising at an alarming rate and people selling their old weights are usually looking for a trivial amount of money and certainly don't appreciate the true worth of their iron! Still worth a barter even if up for a good price! ;¬) BUT if you want to buy new then we keep plenty in stock for mail order or shop collection.
Olympic Bars
Olympic weights and Olympic bars. We often get asked what the difference is between Olympic and Standard weights and bars. Olympic bars feature 2" ends which are mounted to the main bar by roller bearings. The rotating ends are more beneficial when performing Olympic style lifts where the bar is rotated through 180 degrees for example clean and press (from floor to overhead) where there is no resistance from the static mass of the plates. Also Olympic bars can have greater loading capacities as the bar is not limited to 25mm diameter as with Standard weights so the diameter of a 1500 lb can be up to 32mm.
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Olympic Bar Storage
Both Home and Commercial Gyms need somewhere to safely store Olympic Weight Training Bars when not in use. In this section we have a variety of both wall mounted and free-standing Olympic Bar Storage Racks. The hard part will be getting your customers (or family members) to put their weights and bars away after use.
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Olympic Weight Plates
Olympic weight plates for use on Olympic Bars. Olympic weights come in various styles, designs and quality from rubber coated weights, rubber polygonal plates, bumper plates, competition grade plates and much more. Excluding the cost of olympic bars, the price of olympic weights are the same as the price of standard weights as it all comes down to £/Kg for cast iron regardless of the size of hole in the middle.
Olympic weights are harder to come by from regular highstreet stores but then again, your typical local store or catalogue shop won't usually sell anything bigger than a 10Kg plate, so you're still going to have to buy your bigger weights from a specialist supplier like GymRatZ
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Olympic Plate Storage
Storage racks for Olympic Weight Plates. Various offerings for different weight plates including rubber bumper plates. Wall and floor storage racks to keep your gym tidy. Some of the Weight Plate Storage Racks also feature bar storage such as this York Barbell one pictured however as bar storage is an additional feature it we'll simply keep the units listed as weight plate storage in this section to keep the website tidy, just like your gym will be. :)
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Olympic Weight Sets
Whether you're looking for a basic Cast Iron Olympic Weight Set for your home gym, or looking for solid rubber bumper plates or training plates or even competition grade sets then this is the place to look. Ranging from the cheapest weight up to the most prestigious names in the weightlifting field. Take a look inside.
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Standard Bars
Standard weightlifting weights bars. I've mentioned the differences between weights bars elsewhere, so all you need to know is we have solid steel standard weights bars with good quality multi-layered chroming, not too aggressive knurling, and weights bars that live up to expected non-commercial use. I.e. a lifetime of domestic use and abuse. Everything from solid chromed steel short weights bars to full length 7' strength bars essential for 99.5% of all power racks or benches with wide stance uprights on the rack.
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Standard Weight Plates
Standard cast iron weights and plates are most commonly see in the home gym mainly because of their availability through high-street shops and catalogue stores. There are both pro's and cons to regular weights compared to olympic weights, but the main difference comes with the bars. Realistically if you already have some cast weights then it's best to stick with them. Keep your eyes peeled for 2nd hand cast weights. They'll almost certainly be standard 1” hole plates and be going for a bargain. Even rusty ones will spray up like new, just knock the price down a bit.
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Standard Collars
Not a big section here. Just a few collars for standard bars, Including spring collars and cast collars.
We've put them in their own section as collars are one of those things quite often overlooked and forgotten when customers are ordering weights and bars. Don't forget a pair of dumbell handles require 2 pairs of collars. A mistake we frequently pick out from current on-line orders. Don't forget, unlike many other sites, we don't have a minimum order charge for weights, so if you just want a pair of spring clips then spring clips it is.
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Fixed Weight Barbells
Fixed weight barbells are typically only found in commercial gyms due to the associated costs compared to a regular Olympic or Standard bar and plates that are adjusted as required.
The beauty of fixed weight barbells for a commercial gym is that they provide graduated increments on a bar that is shorter than a regular straight bar so ideal for straight bar biceps curls of for the younger lifter.
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