Overview and review of the Rogue Calibrated steel plates
The Rogue calibrated steel plates will set you back about $885 dollars or $5.56 dollars per kg. 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.
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.
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.
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Urethane plates
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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.
Which plates to get from Rogue?
This video discusses which plates you might want to buy for your home gym from Rogue Fitness. Good options are their bumper plates or simple cast iron plates if you want to save money. I personally own the Black training plates from rogue and like them a lot.
Overview of the calibrated steel plates
The
Rogue calibrated steel plates come in KG and LBS nominations. They are popular for
powerlifting purposes as they can fit a lot of weight onto a
bar. They are also approved by the IPF and therefore be used for official
powerlifting competitions based on their high level of precision.
In the manufacturing process, each plate will vary in weight when it is finished. The cheaper the plate, the more variance you will have.
Calibrated plates are made with better quality machines and add one production process at the end which is the calibration. What happens here is that the plates are weighed and then there will be a disc placed into little holes at the back of them to adjust to within 10grams of the desired weight.
Weight / Color / Diameter / Thickness / Price per pair
50kg / black / 450mm / 50mm / $386.50
25kg / red / 450mm / 27mm / $225
20kg / blue / 450mm / 22.5mm / $182
15kg / yellow / 400mm / 21mm / $140
10kg / green / 325mm / 21mm / $99.50
5kg / white / 228mm / 21.5mm / $82.00
2.5kg / Black / 190mm / 16mm / $55
1.25kg / Chrome / 160mm / 12mm / $42.50
0.5 kg / Chrome / 134MM / 8mm / $35
0.25kg / Chrome / 112mm / 112mm / $25.75
Available sets
159kg, pair of each plate except 50kg $885
459kg, pair of each plate 0.25kg to 20kg & 7 pairs of 25kg $2060
Calibrated steel plates are very good when you want to fit as much weight in as little space as possible. As long as you do not want to drop your weights this is great.
Pros of the calibrated steel plates
Calibrated steel plates are the ones you will use in competition in a
powerlifting meet. They will also take up less space in your gym than
bumper plates for the same amount of weight. The color coding looks cool and gives any gym a little extra feel of being professional when it comes to getting results. With these, you can train like a real champion.
Cons of the calibrated steel plates
Steel plates are not ideal for overhead lifts. They spin differently than
competition bumper plates and behave differently when you switch direction during the lift. They also suffer from dropping or heavy use a lot more. Especially the calibration discs can come loose and start to rattle or fall out over time altogether.
Alternatives to the calibrated steel plates
Calibrated steel plates with LBS nominations are the same plate style but take out the thinking for you when you prefer to lift in pounds. If you do not want to compete this might be an option, as the international standard for the IPF is to measure the weight lifted in kilograms.
Competition bumper plates can be a good alternative if you focus more on weightlifting than
powerlifting in your local gym. These plates are specially designed to be used in Olympic lifts. Dor this purpose they have a metal core and bumper surroundings. The only downside with these plates is that you can not fir as much on the
bar as with steel. But you were not planning on overhead pressing 400kg soon, weren't you.
The most durable and high-quality plates you can get from Rogue are the
Urethane plates. Therefore, they are also the most expensive. You can basically think of these as the steroid version of the
competition bumper plates which last longer. If you will drop your plates often and use them outside for overhead lifts, this might be the way to go.