Reddit reviews PlateMate Micro Loading 1.25 Pound Donut Weight Plate - 1 Pair
We found 3 Reddit comments about PlateMate Micro Loading 1.25 Pound Donut Weight Plate - 1 Pair. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
You will receive 1 Pair of 1.25 Pound PlateMate Donuts - 2.5 Pounds Total.DOES NOT fit around Olympic Barbells.
(Hey, I replied to you on the other thread as well)
Also, I'd avoid broscience ideas that sets/reps create more "definition." How defined you look is going to depend on the amount of muscle mass you have and how low your body fat is.
2)I'd modify that plan so that your first work set is a weight that you can do AT LEAST 3 reps with, and then work your way up to 6 or so reps before adding more weight to the bar.
I think always starting with a ORM is likely to sacrifice form and unnecessarily fatigue you prior to your real work sets. I'd be happy to see any evidence to the contrary, but my understanding/experience has always been that using a weight which allows me to crush out several reps with proper form will yield the greatest improvement.
I think part of this is that it will naturally take longer to double the number of times you can press or pull your ORM than it will to add another rep to a weight you can already press/pull more times. Once you become an advanced trainee (or if you already are) you will be fighting even harder for every extra pound or rep, and you must train accordingly
*One helpful tip Stuart Mcrobert mentioned in his classicBeyond Brawn is to get yourself a pair of 1.25 lb plates, so that you can still increase the weight by a total of 2.5 lbs should 5 lbs be too much. When it comes to progressive overload, every improvement counts.
http://www.amazon.com/PlateMate-Micro-Loading-Weight-Plate/dp/B0006UABIU/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1422728920&sr=8-5&keywords=magnetic+weights
I use these and they work fine.
The barbell bench doesn't really have any abstract advantage over dumbbells beyond convenience of loading. The first is the issue xqby brought up, that incrementation by default has large jumps. You can circumvent this, however, assuming the dumbbells you use can have magnetic plates attach:
http://www.amazon.com/PlateMate-Microload-Magnetic-Donut-Weights/dp/B000W00KY4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=undefined&sr=8-1&keywords=2.5+lb+magnetic+platemate
http://www.amazon.com/PlateMate-Micro-Loading-Weight-Plate/dp/B0006UABIU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=undefined&sr=8-2&keywords=2.5+lb+magnetic+platemate
A pair each of those will allow you to increase the total weight (weight of both dumbbells together) in 2.5 increments, just like 1.25 lb plates allow with barbells. This will cost you a good chunk of $100, somewhat absurdly, but it's a fairly permanent solution to the incrementation problem IF your dumbbells allow magnetic attachments.
2) When you start getting really heavy, e.g. 100+ lb dumbbells, just getting the damn things in position to press can get annoying and you actually have to be very careful about picking them up and then getting them into place for that first rep. Despite being an otherwise arguably safer movement, VERY heavy dumbbell bench can get awkward to the point where you can start to jeopardize that a bit.
However, if you have dumbbells that allow magnetic attachments you can pretty much have a beginner scale from very light dumbbells to fairly heavy dumbbells as long as you have access to the magnetic plates above.
There is nothing in principle about this better or worse than getting stronger in the barbell bench. As a guy with screwed up shoulders I find dumbbell bench easier to handle, and the lack of needing a spotter as you approach limit weight or reps is rather nice.