One of the hallmarks of the Starting Strength program is that you are constantly making forward progress, that you are always adding weight every workout.

Granted, you can’t always increase by large poundages. So maybe you start off increasing in 10# increments, but that’ll be sustainable only for so long. So eventually you drop down to increasing 5# increments. Eventually that won’t be sustainable, you want to drop down to maybe 2.5# increments. But that’s where a lot of people run into trouble. Most standard gyms and Olympic weight sets only offer 2.5# plates as the smallest increment, so you can only jump 5# at a time.

There are some places you can find 1.25# plates so you can do 2.5# jumps, but even then what if you want smaller jumps? On the SS program even if you can only go up 1#, that’s still progressing and what it’s all about.

So how to manage the fractional weights? There are lots of approaches.

You can get baseball bat weights, which can go down to being 8 oz. in weight, so that can allow you to move in 1# increments. I looked at these and while they’ll fit on an Olympic bar, they’re also expensive at $5 each (that was the price at my local store). So you’ll have to drop $10 for one set, and you’ll want a few sets to allow you to span a 5# distance in those 1# increments. That adds up. Plus, they’re bulky.

Some people go to the hardware store and are able to find large washers that will fit. If you can do this and find washers with reasonable matched weight, that’s not a bad way to go and generally isn’t too costly. Or if you’re at the hardware store, get small links of steel chain and make loops that you can hang off the end.

I even saw one suggestion somewhere (can’t remember the web page now) where someone used cloth and pennies, rolling the pennies into little “sausage link bundles” and then into a looped chain.

Whatever works! It’s just weight. Doesn’t have to be fancy.

But when I was looking around for a solution, I came across what are called “fractional plates”. I found 2 brands: one from Iron Woody Fitness, and the other from APT Pro Gear. Unfortunately everyone was out of stock, but I found some on eBay:

What I liked about these was the clean increments: 1/4#, 1/2#, 3/4#, 1#, 2 plates of each. So, you now have the ability to move in 1/2# increments and cover a 5# range. Sweet! Plus the color-coding is nice for quick reference. Just keep these in your gym bag and off you go.

Sure it’s not as home-brewed as other solutions, but I like this because it’s a “clean” solution. It’s not moving in 6 oz. increments or 1.333# increments. Really of course, it doesn’t matter… but I guess I just like the nice clean “round numbers”. 🙂

Bottom line: the program needs some way to do smaller increments. Whatever way you get there, so long as you do.