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Hampton Weight Plates


Tom Black

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    I happened to go into a fitness store earlier this week and found a real discovery.   It seems like this store has different brands of plates ever year, and this time they had a brand that I have never heard of before.  The brand name was Hampton and they had an extremely wide flange, and a substantial hub.   Years ago my gym had the old York plates, but I haven’t seen any in at least 5 years, but these Hampton plates in my faded memory looked identical to the old York plates.  If you are interested in doing hub lifting or really wide pinch grips, these plates may fit the bill.  I’m going to go by some today, probably 2x25 and a 45-pounder, and I’ll post a clear picture of the hubs and flange for everyone who’s interested.

    I’ve attached a few links to show the plates off, but I can’t find the perfect picture that shows how wide they are and how big the hub is.  In the first link, note the picture on the bottom right.  The plate on the far right of the picture looks to be what I saw:

    Hampton plates

This link looks like a good price for these plates, but I can’t tell if they are the exactly the same hub and flange size:

    Megafitness

This is the web site of Hampton, the maker of the plates, but it is overly fancy and hard to find the product on the page!

    Hampton

They even make some nice bumper plates, see this link:

    Worldwide fitness

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Tom,  Way back when the Grip Board was in its infancy, I posted about Hampton plates.  They are in fact nice and wide!  I ordered a pair of 25's from Atomic Athletic about a year and a half ago, and I love them.  Roger Lapointe from Atomic is a pleasure to deal with, and as far as I know they still carry these plates.  It is an easy way to order them if you don't live near any store that carries them.

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The gym where I train has several Hampton plates. A popular loading method is to stack the wide Hampton plates on one side of the bar and the thinner York standard plates on the other. No collars.

The Hampton plates have a squared or flattened edge whereas the old York plates have a rounded edge. The hub on the Hampton is rather intimidating for a hub lift. Also, the Hampton plates have a slick enamel coating that makes pinch lifting extra challenging. This may be a manufacturing defect with one or two of the plates but a few of them don't fit flush when placed smooth side out.

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Here's the picture of the Hampton 25-pound plate.  It measures 1.75" wide, which would make for a 3.5" total pinch grip.  The hub is 1" high.  The hub on the 45 looked to be a little higher, maybe 1.125"

Hampton25.JPG

Kingpin, I think rubber plates would be too easy to pinch grip.  These plates are very difficult to pinch grip without chalk.  I'll give them a ride next week, I will be surprised if I will be able to pinch them with one hand, they are very wide.  I tried to pick two that fit together well because I noticed what Barbender said about the plates fitting together.

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Guest kINGPIN

You are right they are a little easier to pinch but the width does in a way make up for it.  I never thought of hub pinching with it though.  I will have a look to see if the hub is prominant enough to try.

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I was able to lift the 25 by the hub today.  My hands are not fully recovered from Friday's workout so I might be able to put a little weight on it next workout.  I'm planning on using the magnetic plate mates to add weight.  The 25 pounds was quite a bit harder than Ironmind's "hub" but not impossible.  In the store I was trying to pick it up by the hub and the salesman said "not that way."  I barely cracked the floor without any chalk and slippery hands.

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I did my first workout with the hub today and worked my way up to 31-pounds by adding 2x2.5 plate mates plus 2x1/2 pound PDA plates.  It was interesting to use a real hub, rather than the Ironmind simulated hub.  I also did an 18.5 pound hammer lift over my head, but got a blurry shot. I remembered afterward that I usually put the camera closer and zoom out so that the flash is closer. I held the hammer for 3 seconds or so, but I think the shutter speed was too slow.  It's tricky getting a good self portrait with 18.5 pounds of hammer over your head!  I'll try to get a better picture next week of the hammer, but here's the 31-pound hub lift for now:

31poundHub.JPG

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:) I have done many grip training sessions with bare or stockinged feet. The potential for either accidents or flat feet is negated by a) holding on even more and b) not worrying about it!
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we have hampton plates at the gym here at school.  they are a beast to pinch, but they are much better than the other plates we have for hub lifting.  all the pumpers here like to use them because they're thicker and it makes it look like there's more weight on the bar.

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