Are Cheap Bumper Plates Too Thick for Heavy Squats

Oi, 25kg plates are standard over here and they are plenty heavy enough for me. If I ever need more than that on the bar, I’ll just start doing one-legged squats!

I prefer the 35lb plates for building up. They are thinner and let me adjust the weight more precisely without the bar getting too bulky too fast.

Just buy iron if you're worried. You can usually find it for $1 a pound on Craigslist or Marketplace. Then use the bumpers only for power cleans or deadlifts.

Iron is getting harder to find for that price in BC lately. Everyone thinks their rusty plates are made of gold. I’ll stick to my mix-and-match system.

Is there a specific brand of "thin" budget bumpers? I saw some called "stealth" or something that looked slimmer.

Those are usually just rebranded urethane plates. They are thinner, but they bounce like crazy. If you drop them, make sure you're ready to jump out of the way.

Good luck Mike! Post a pic of the bar when you finally max it out. We want to see those sleeves full!