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Overview and review of the Rogue Wagon wheel pair [Article, Free Download]

Posted by Pascal Landshoeft

May 5, 2019 9:30:00 AM

Overview and review of the Rogue Wagon Wheel Pair

 

The Rogue Wagon wheel plates will set you back about $425. These plates are especially good to use for powerlifters who are serious about competing. This overview has originally been published in the article "Which rogue plates to buy" which you can find on this blog.

 
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What else to consider from Rogue

Most popular Rogue plates

This is an overview of the most popular Rogue plates on Marathon-Crossfit.com in 2020 based on views and click thoughs for purchase on Rogue Fitness. If you want more detail on how the data was collected and what the strengths and shortcomings of the data set are you can dig deeper on what were the most popular rogue products in 2020.

Most popular Rogue plates in 2020

 
These were the most popular rogue plates on Marathon-Crossfit.com. On the plates, I would caution between overall popularity and the popularity of my site. The plates listed below are more niche than the Rogue bumpers, the calibrated steel plates, and competition bumpers. If you want a safe bet for your use case these three might be better, as more people buy them.
 
 
The Fleck plates are a variation on the Rogue bumper plates which have been infused with red, blue, yellow, and green to indicate the weight of the plates. The splash of color also makes them more fun compared to the regular bumpers. If you find the rogue bumpers too bland but also do not want to shell out more than $1000 on calibrated steel plates or competition bumpers to get color coding then the Fleck plates are for you. You can read the full review of the Fleck plates via this link.
 
The Rogue Urethane plates are color-coded and also claim the best durability in the Rogue plate portfolio. Whether that warrants the high price tag compared to regular bumpers is a question you have to answer for yourself, but I personally don’t think so. If you want to spend more money on plates, spend it on precision rather than durability in my personal opinion within the Rogue portfolio. Rogue equipment is known to be more durable than the competition so I would not put too much focus on this unless you run an Olympic training center where the plates will go through hundreds of heavy drops per day. You can read the full review of the Rogue Urethane plates here.
 
The Rogue black training plates have the best dead drop in the Rogue portfolio which means they bounce the least when dropped from overhead. These are the plates which I use most often as I like the design because black does not show marks as easily as other plates. You can read my full review of the Rogue black training plates via this link.
 
The 6 shooter plates from Rogue are often overlooked as a good option for commercial gyms. They are relatively cheap compared to other Rogue plates and easier to handle in a gym setting where you have a lot of them flying about. The downside is that you can not use them for overhead drops as this will wreck the plates, floor, and barbell in the process. You can read the full review of the rogue 6 shooter plates via this link.

 

Overview of the Wagon wheel plates

 
The Wagon wheel plates are a co-design between Mark Bell and Rogue. The basic idea is that a standard 45LB can be bigger than 450mm. The result is a pair of plates which have 660mm in diameter and are therefore called Wagon wheels. If you do not want to buy blocks save storage space for block pulls, this is the way to go. Specs of the wagon wheel plates:
 
  • Made in the USA
  • 0.375'' thick laser cut steel construction
  • 45LB
  • 2% Weight tolerance
  • 660mm Diameter
  • 50.80mm width
This is a specialized tool when you get serious with your powerlifting to get more volume in without wrecking your lower back. They also cost less than proper pulling blocks. If you only need blocks for powerlifting purposes, this is a great option which is easy to store in your gym.
 

Pros of the Wagon wheel plates

 
The Wagon wheel saves space and time when you want to deadlifts from a block. They also cost less than their wooden or metal blocks which fit the same purpose from Rogue. 
 

Cons of the wagon wheel plates

 
The Wagon wheel cannot be used for Olympic weightlifting style block pulls or jerking. For jerking, they are too low and for dynamic block pulls the metal is too hard on the floor and wrists of the lifter. For Olympic weightlifting, you are better off to buy proper jerk blocks.
 

Alternatives to the Wagon wheel plates

 
Alternatives to the wagon wheel are:
 
The metal jerk blocks from Rogue are adjustable in height and beasts to behold. These are space saving compared to their wooden counterparts as you do not need multiple of them to stack higher up.
 
Wooden jerk blocks take up more space in your gym than the metal blocks offer the same height options, but are in turn more modular. With one full set, several athletes can train from different starting positions. 
 

Topics: Rogue