Bumper plates are manufactured to withstand drops onto the floor, which is desirable for Olympic weightlifting (such as snatch, clean and jerk, hang cleans), where you often drop the plates onto the ground. Iron plates are better for lifts that do not involve the weights hitting the ground (such as bench press, squats, and curls), because they can cause damage to the floor, the barbell, and to the plates themselves.

When bumper plates arrive, unpack them and let them air out for a few days to allow any odor, however faint, to fade.

To extend their life span, try to drop plates as close to straight down as possible. If your bar collars get loose during a workout, try to retighten them so your plates always land straight up and down. This will lessen the sideways force on the bumper plate insert. Also, flooring with some type of give (like heavy-duty rubber mats or a weightlifting platform) will help absorb some of the impact from dropping the plates.

We do not recommend this, because iron and bumper plates can have slightly different diameters, meaning all the force from dropping the weights goes into the larger plate, causing those plates and your barbell to wear more quickly. It is best to keep all plates on your bar of the same type.

All our bumper plates have a 2” Olympic-standard inner diameter and will fit 2” standard barbells.

Yes, they come with a five-year warranty. Note: The warranty is void if the bumper plates are mixed with Hi-Temp Bumper Plates. Hi-Temps have a smaller diameter than regular plates, which means a bar loaded with a mix of REP's bumper plates and Hi-Temps will result in the bumper plates taking all the load, causing them to degrade faster.