Olympic Bar

[Being_the_Don]

I've been thinking about something for a while now. Fixed bars ie those where the weights are already fixed on the bar are smaller and weigh less than Olympic barbells. Yeah, that's obvious, right? Well, it wasn't to me for some reason. When I barbell bench press and do my deadlifts I always use the Olympic bar. And since about 1 month ago I've been using the Olympic bar for the standing barbell overhead press, too. Olympic bars weigh about 45 pounds. Now when I think about all of those lifts with the Olympic bar, I was not counting the weight of the bar itself. So looking at the flat bench barbell press, currently I'm lifting at 130 pounds w/o adding the weight of the bar. When I include the bar that weight increases to 175 pounds. My deadlifts therefore are much higher than what I had thought. My 1 RPM is 345 pounds w/o counting the bar. When the bar is added that number goes up to 390 pounds. My average is 320 pounds w/o counting the bar.

My question is: do the rest of you add the weight of the bar when talking about your squats, deadlifts, barbell bench press, etc. ?

 

[SmellyOrc]

Of course. Why wouldn't we? I mean, the bar is also under effect of the gravitational force(s).

 

[Smack]

Of course!

 

[Cry For Love]

We would never ignore a chance to boost our egos! Be it doing quarter squats with big loads or adding the weight to the bar and ad

 

[Kerpal]

Yes...

Dude, you just figured out how to add 45 lbs to all your lifts instantly!

 

[BMX]

To answer your question, yes. A better question is, do you add the 45 to your legpress total, some do others do not. They argue it's because of the 45 degree angle that it shouldn't count, doesn't matter to me since I haven't leg-pressed in over 2 years.

 

[JohnnyIrish]

Funny.. I thought the same as you thing until Quagmire pointed this out to me this past Janruary.

 

[Being_the_Don]

Thanks, everyone. I feel like such a newbie now. LOL! As kerpal said I can now add 45 pounds to all those lifts. As for the legpress, I don't do them anymore. I did many months ago but I traded them out for dumbbell squats. I heard or read somewhere that legpresses weren't very effective for training the legs. Is this true?

 

[1979]

Thanks, everyone. I feel like such a newbie now. LOL! As kerpal said I can now add 45 pounds to all those lifts. As for the legpress, I don't do them anymore. I did many months ago but I traded them out for dumbbell squats. I heard or read somewhere that legpresses weren't very effective for training the legs. Is this true?

This is not true. Have you ever seen Ronnie Coleman do a leg workout? Check it out youtube. He uses leg presses for sure. My theory is no exercise is useless. I'm all about muscle confusion. I change my workouts every 2-3 weeks so my muscles never know what to expect and cannot adapt effectively to my routine. One week I'll do squats + romanian DLs. Maybe two weeks, then change to good mornings, farmer's walk, leg presses. You get the idea. Keep changing it up and you'll get huge in no time.