In theory, the gym is supposed to supply the weights for you to lift while you’re there. But sometimes their collection doesn’t have exactly what you want. If their smallest weight plates are 5 or 10 pounds, be a rebel: bring smaller ones in your gym bag.
After all, if you only have 5-pound plates, you have to adjust the total weight on the barbell by 10 pounds at a time. If you’re struggling with something like an overhead press, especially as a new lifter, 10 pounds is a huge jump.
My gym has 2.5-pound plates, and for that I am grateful. But not all gyms do, and sometimes even when a gym has small plates there may only be a single pair up for grabs. Being small, they may also go missing, only to turn up weeks later underneath some larger piece of equipment.
So if you want to be sure you’ll have those 2.5 or even 1.25 pound plates available when you need them, bring your own! If you’d like to buy a pair, search for “fractional” or “micro” plates. There are also myriad DIY options, like repurposing giant washers from the hardware store, or weighing out a length of chain and clipping it into a circle.
Before you start looking for smaller and smaller plates, note that precision is elusive. Even the large plates at the gym are not always the exact weight marked, so this 45-pound plate might already be a few ounces lighter or heavier than that 45-pound plate. I wouldn’t bother with teeny tiny plates, even though you can buy them in increments as small as a quarter pound.
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