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Plate calculator

Which plates to load for a target weight.

The plate calculator shows the plates to put on each side of a barbell to reach a weight, using the plates your gym has. Load the bar right the first time, without doing the maths in your head.

When to use it

  • You are on a barbell lift and want to know which plates go on each side for the weight you are about to lift.
  • Your gym has fewer plate sizes than the full load needs, and you want the closest load your plates allow.
  • You want the warm-up sets worked out as plates too, not only the working weight.
  • You train in more than one gym, and the bar or the plates are different in each.

Step by step

  1. Open a barbell lift in your session and find the weight box. Tap the button under it named Plates for followed by the weight in the box, in kilograms.
  2. The Plates sheet opens. Set the target weight at the top with the minus button and the plus button. Each tap moves the target by 2.5 kg.
  3. Check the drawing below the target: one sleeve of the bar, plates heaviest first from the collar, sized and coloured like real plates.
  4. Read Each side under the drawing: how many of each plate size go on one side, as count × weight, then a line adding up the bar weight, the plates and the total.
  5. Tap Use, which shows the loaded weight in kilograms, to put that weight in the weight box and close the sheet. If the exact weight could not be made, the button adds instead.

When the plates cannot make it

If your plates cannot make the target exactly, Forma says so and shows the closest load, with how far it is under or over. When two loads are equally close, it picks the lighter one. The button then says instead, and using it puts the closest weight in the box.

If the target is lighter than the bar itself, Forma tells you the bar is already heavier than your target. Nothing is added, the sheet says the bar is on its own, and the drawing shows the bare bar.

Bar and plates at this gym

The gear button on the Plates sheet opens Gym setup:

  • Bar — a 20 kg bar, a 15 kg bar, or a 7.5 kg EZ bar. Lifts whose name contains EZ, such as an EZ bar or an EZ curl, start on the 7.5 kg bar on their own. The bar you saved for your gym does not change.
  • Plates you have — tap the sizes your gym has. The full range is 25, 20, 15, 10, 5, 2.5 and 1.25 kg, plus 0.5 and 0.25 kg microplates.

You count pairs of each size, and as many pairs as you need. The setup is saved for the gym you chose in Forma, so each gym remembers its own.

Warm-up steps

Below the plates, the sheet shows your warm-ups for this lift as loads. If today's session has its own, it shows Your warm-ups. Otherwise it shows a Suggested warm-up ramp of up to three steps: about half the working weight for 8 reps, then 70 percent for 5, and 85 percent for 3. Each step is rounded to the nearest 2.5 kg. A step that is not lighter than the working weight is left out. Each step lists its own plates. Warm-up steps are never counted as volume.

Good to know

  • The button only appears on barbell lifts. Machines, dumbbells, cables and bodyweight lifts have nothing to load, so they do not show it.
  • The button reads Plates for this weight when the weight box is still empty.
  • The sheet opens at the weight already in the weight box for the set you are on. If that box is still empty, it starts at the lift's suggested weight. Change the weight afterwards and the sheet picks it up next time you open it.
  • The calculator works everything out on your phone. It needs no connection.
  • The drawing shows one side. The total counts both sides, so load the same plates on each unless the sheet says the bar is on its own.

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