REP fitness Urethane coated Equalizer plates vs Rogue Urethane plates
This is a comparison between the REP fitness Urethane coated Equalizer plates and the Rogue Urethane plates. Follow the links for more details.
Overview and review of the Rogue Urethane plates
The Rogue Urethane plates will set you back about $1150 dollars or $7.46 dollars per kg. These plates are especially good to use for gyms who want long lasting plates. 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.
Overview of the Urethane plates
The
Rogue Urethane plates are the second most expensive ones in the Rogue portfolio per kg. What you get in return are the longest lasting, all weather plates you can obtain from Rogue. These plates are 450mm in diameter and made to IWF specs. They have a chrome insert and dead bounce on the drop. The chrome piece provides easy loading on the
bar and reduced friction on the sleeves. This is the plate to buy if your last
competition plates fell apart at the chrome insert.
Weight / Color / Diameter / Thickness / Price per pair
55LB / Red / 450mm / 58mm / $310
45LB / Blue / 450mm / 53mm / $260
35LB / Yellow / 450mm / 48mm / $220
25LB / Green / 450mm / 40mm / $160
10LB / Black / 450mm / 20mm / $70
Available sets
210lb, 2x 25-35-45LB $750
300LB, 2x 25-35-4x45LB $1050
320LB, 2x 25-35-45-55LB $1100
340LB, 2x 10-25-35-45-55 $1150
Pros of the Urethane plates
This is an all-purpose plate which will last a long time and is hard. It will take the abuse of many users of different experience levels and still look good. This is a great plate for high demands and someone who does not want to replace the plates as often compared to other plates with a chrome insert.
Cons of the Urethane plates
The biggest con is the high price. If you go for
Olympic or
bumper plates you will get a lot more kilograms per $$$. You might be buying twice in this scenario and you will also know that you took the cheap road to success. I personally stopped doing this and it yields great results.
Alternatives to the Urethane plates
C
ompetition plates will not last as long as they have a tendency to pull apart between the rubber and the chrome insert. They also bounce more. Still, if you want to get as close as possible to the real world championships, then these are the plates to go for instead with the slight risk that they might fall apart after years of heavy use.
The
black training plates are a great design from rogue which combines the
bumper plate effectiveness with the excellence of Rogue's
competition grade plates. You will find color coding and extra touches to make the plates more user-friendly and robust. This is the elegant choice of the professional.
Calibrated steel plates are the plates for anyone who wants to put the maximum amount of weight possible on the
bar while still having color-coded plates. These plates are also approved by the IPF and are used in competition. If you want to get serious about
powerlifting, this should be your choice.
Overview and review of the REP fitness Urethane coated Equalizer plates
This is an overview of the REP fitness Urethane coated equalizer plates including pros, cons, and alternatives. The original was published under which plates to buy from rep fitness. Follow the links for more details.
Rep Urethane Coated Equalizers $15
The
REP Urethane coated Equalizer plates are a great way on how REP fitness thought about innovation in the fitness space and applied to their product line to make something that saves cost while still being durable.
Urethane plates are said to be one of the most durable plates you can have for a gym. The problem is that it is costly to produce dumbbells or plates completely made of
Urethane. So rep took their successful
equalizer plate design and applied a
Urethane coat to them. What you get is a very affordable, cool-looking plate for your home gym or for commercial use that is also durable. The full specifications of these plates are:
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Six (6) precision-cut holes so athletes can move these plates comfortably from any angle.
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Cast iron plates are coated in a commercial-grade ultra-durable CPU urethane that is highly impact-resistant and shock absorbent.
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CPU Urethane has virtually no odor.
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Attractive embossed logo and weight markings with white inlay.
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Grip cutouts for easy handling.
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3% weight tolerance.
Plate Dimensions (width/diameter)
These plates are great for commercial use as they are easy to pick up from the floor and handled all kinds of exercises. If I owned my own gym for clients instead of a home gym, I would probably get these plates.
Pros of the Rep Urethane Coated Equalizers
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Easy to handle
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Forgiving
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Cool design
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Attractive price
These plates live up to the "better, faster, cheaper" credo that often cited in business to create a better solution. These plates are easy to put away, pick up from the ground, and load onto the barbell based on their six holes. The design also makes them look cool as the holes are not round but hexagonal.
The
Urethane coating makes them more forgiving than
regular iron plates so you will not have sharp edges or rubbing off other equipment in your gym. All of this at a very attractive price point makes this a serious contender, especially for commercial use.
Cons of the Rep Urethane Coated Equalizers
I personally think these are a lot better than the regular Equlizer plates and absolutely worth the extra money compared to these. But you still have to keep in mind that you are buying an
iron plate with a Urethane coating, not a
Urethane bumper. This means that these plates will take a bigger toll on your floor and equipment when dropped from overhead than an actual
Urethane or
bumper plate. Don't believe that this behaves just like a
bumper for your lifts. It behaves like an
Iron plate with a bit of cushioning. If you ever have used an Iron kettlebell with plastic coating you get what I mean.
While the holes are great for moving the plates around, the integrity of these plates is compromised. They are more likely to crack or warp under heavy use than plates that have a full disc. In a mass use scenario where you have spare plates and can have a rollover contingency for a franchise that does not matter that much, but for your home gym it does matter when one or two of your 55s crack and you are short for your heavy cycles.
Compared to other
bumper plates you have no color options on the
equalizers. If you wanted to get black anyway, no harm done.
Alternatives to the Rep Urethane Coated Equalizers
The
REP equalizer plates are an alternative to save a little money for more or less the same thing. Especially if you are not intending to use the plates for Russian twists or other exercises where you hold the plates you might as well go for the non-coated option and get some spare change to buy something else.
The Rep rubber-coated Olympic plates are an even more budget optimized option out of the REP plate lineup. You can also carry these around very easily and they do the trick of providing weight to your barbell. I personally don't like their design and would rather buy the
Coated Equalizers. But that's just me.
The
REP HI Temp bumper plates are in my opinion the better option for someone who is intending to do a lot of CrossFit or Olympic lifting at home but is on a tight budget. For this type of training, you need on average less weight on the bar than for powerlifting so the thickness of the plates does not matter as much. What does matter is the damage to your equipment and floor when dropping weights from overhead which will be considerably less with the
bumpers than with the equalizers. Yes, the rubber coating does help, but you are still dropping plates with a metal core from overhead.
The
Rogue 6 Shooter plates
are in my opinion the right plates for someone who mainly does powerlifting at home, but is fed up with how hard
iron plates are to handle. These will be easier on your back and you will be delighted that it has become a lot easier to load and deload your barbell with those 700 pounds you pull in meet preparation. They also make that nice rattling metal sound that anyone who can lift more than three wheels for reps loves. They are not great for commercial use as they are simple
iron plates with holes in them. For that scenario, the urethane-coated equalizers are still better.
Rogue HI temp bumpers are an alternative to consider to the REP HI Temp bumpers if you are mainly into oly lifting. Stay away from the
equalizers if you are intending to drop your plates from overhead often and compare the low-end
bumper options for your need between different vendors.
TITAN is the friend of everyone who wants to make their home gym dollar stretch as far as possible. As long as you do not mind minor quality issues and know how to assemble things without instructions or sand down / widen some drilled holes,
TITAN is your best option to get the most home gym for your buck.
Conclusion for the Rep Urethane Coated Equalizers
The
REP Urethane Coated Equalizers are from my perspective some of the best plates in the market for commercial use. They look good, are practical, do not cost a lot and will not be wrecked by the average joe in your gym. You also can get quite a lot of them on a plate tree which is also important for commercial use. If your clientele is heavily into Oly lifting you might get real
bumpers instead. For a home gym, I also think that they are nice, but I would lean to more upmarket plates or something really cheap like
simple iron plates in this scenario.