Why Are Olympic Weightlifting Plates Covered In Rubber?

Whilst anyone can lift weights at any time, the competitive weightlifting season is in full swing, with meets and championships taking place from spring all throughout the summer.

Following the British Championships in mid-May, the target for many competitive lifters is Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games in late July, a major part of the calendar for British, Indian, Canadian and Australian athletes two years away from the next Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

With competition season in bloom and brightly Olympic bumper plates being loaded, snatched, and lifted in a clean and jerk, it is worth looking back at the century-long evolution of modern weightlifting.

Specifically, why are competition plates coated in rubber to begin with? Why do they need to be bumper plates? And did this change singlehandedly save weightlifting as we know it?

Were Bumper Plates Always Used For Weightlifting?

The first weightlifting events from the 1880s up until the invention of the revolving barbell in 1928 were filled with inconsistencies in the rules, which lifts were allowed, how lifting was judged and what weights could be used.

This only began to be standardised with the return of the sport to the Olympic Games, aided by specialist barbells and weights that would spin and provide whip to aid with lifting heavier weights without injury, as well as the introduction of a proper lifting platform.

This platform, initially made of wood, was strong enough to hold a heavyweight lifter and their weights, but there was a fear that the wood would split or break if the weights were dropped during a competitive lift attempt.

Even if one drop should not cause a collapse, the cumulative impact of dozens of lifts could potentially make the platform dangerous.

This led to a rule being put in place where lifters were not allowed to drop weights following a successful lift but had to control their descent down to the platform.

Whilst it was fine as a rule for gyms and a general agreement amongst competitors, it was far from sustainable, and a better solution needed to be devised as the sport evolved.

Why Did Bumper Plates Become Necessary?

Many early rules in weightlifting were prone to wildly varying interpretations, and the challenges of creating universal definitions of a legal clean and press led to an entire lift being removed from competition.

Whilst legal lifts needed to be landed under control, missed lifts or lifts where the options for an athlete were to drop it or severely injure themselves would end up being dropped as a matter of course.

Whilst dropping weights when doing a squat or a deadlift is generally considered to be bad form and you will usually get reprimanded at a local gym, it is almost inevitable at the higher weights that competitive weightlifters lift at.

A dropped bar tended to mean dents in the platform and sometimes damage to the barbell itself if the fall was uneven, so there needed to be a solution that went beyond rules or etiquette.

The first signs of a potential solution came about at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. Following the first two weight categories at Shibuya Public Hall, a layer of thin rubber mat was placed over the competition platform.

Remarkably, despite being so thin, it helped to spread out the impact and reduce platform damage, giving lifters, gyms and organisers an idea for what to do next.

The first step was to find conveyor belt coatings or any thin rubber and use it during competitions, but eventually coating the weights themselves would solve three problems at once and save weightlifting.

Did Bumper Plates Save Weightlifting?

Whilst rubber mats became the norm for competition, it was not cost-effective for every gym, and as lifters tried to lift heavier and thus dropped weights more, many facilities switched from free weights to resistance machines.

They were quieter, caused less damage to the floor and did not typically need replacing at the same rate.

At the same time, judges were increasingly struggling to identify all of the plates used and thus the competition weight, so by 1972, rubber bumper plates became the standard.

They were easier to identify by colour, bounced when dropped even on wooden floors and created a lot less noise when they did so.

Weightlifting, like all sports, relies on the grassroots to survive and thrive. The next future Olympic medallist often got their start as a teenager or young adult visiting a gym and trying free weights for the first time.

This simple, elegant and distinctive solution allowed for the sport of weightlifting to thrive on the highest level, and created the distinctive rainbow barbells that have inspired a generation of athletes to watch in awe and try it themselves.