Am I in the minority with this one. It is such a simple and effective mitigation against what that is a potentially serious consequence from a dropped weight plate from a barbell, it seems crazy that it is not.
If you know what you are doing & are not riding the ego train it should never be an issue.
So, yes, mandatory in public gyms 😂
Yes, along with putting weights and other equipment back in the correct places and wiping your sweat off equipment after use. Unfortunately that’s never going to happen in a public gym. Find a small gym run by somebody you like. That’s what I did and now I love going. Welcoming atmosphere with a family vibe. Run by an ex Royal Marine who is also a top bloke.
Standing around with your hands down your shorts, saying “lad” thirty times every sentence, dropping weights on the floor from as high as possible, never putting weights back on racks.
They’re all mandatory around here.
Most gyms have those stupid spring collars, which are just useless and a pain and I would rather do without than use them, I used to take my own collars to the gym to avoid them, some like below. Having those spring collars just shows the owner don't give a shit.
Yes it should, and what fmp said as well
It's a uni/community gym. They have signs about gym etiquette which make no mention of collars. At busy times there are regularly people passing passed benches/squat racks. I have mentioned it to a manager a few times. They did put up some A4 posters stating: Health and Safety, please collar your weights a couple of days ago, then tonight I noticed they'd been taken down again. A gym manager emailed stating "....it is not something we would attempt to make mandatory as in some cases it can be safer to not use collars". Yeah at home, but in a public gym I cannot think of a scenario where NOT collaring weights would be safer.
Worked at a gym doing some maintenance, half the blokes coming in where there just for the full sized mirrors, and lifting weights the size of a bag of sugar, then back to the mirror, one guy using free weights, and quite a few watching him. More like a social centre for posers than a gym.
Strangely no body wanted to help lug heavy fire doors around or carry heavy tool boxes around, they weighed more than a bag of sugar.
I train in a small private gym under the watch of a personal trainer at all times, as does everyone else in there so our etiquette is perfect when it comes to collars, putting plates away, dropping stuff etc.
im working Away from home a couple of nights a week and using the public gym in my hotel and I’d forgot what a hellish place public gyms are. They spend more time standing around posing and talking than actually training, they leave the place like an absolute tip, their form is laughably bad and it’s very annoying.
collars at all times. Only time I may not use a collar is for barbell glute bridges but if you’re squatting or deadlifting then it’s 100% esssential.
most people are absolute quarter wits. It’s worth remembering that
If you are lifting overhead then I'd agree that collars are necessary but for deadlift, I'm not so sure. That said I did use them for deadlifting this evening as I wasn't quite getting the balance right on the lowering phase and the collars did help. That's in a private gym and sounds very similar to what BordinBob goes to. As for clearing up well I was always taught that your session isn't over until all the kit is tidied away.
I snatch and clean & jerk, some times with collars, some times without. And in a public gym.
No kittens died.
But fudge wits that walk on to the platform when I have a bar and weights above my head, now they should be banned from gyms. All gyms.
Has anyone on here ever felt the bar rotate so much that they're worried weights could move?
If so, may I suggest you remove some weight and concentrate on form for a while.
If there were more space and better segregation then it would be less of an issue. My point is that the gym has a duty of care to its members and a responsibility to reduce risk to a level that is ALARP. Mandatory collaring is so easy to implement I feel it is negligent to not have a clear policy. For all the "I don't need them" types it is not a threat to your masculinity and does you no harm to consider the safety of others.
If you're lifting so far outside your comfort zone you think you might need them I'd say you're not considering the safety of others round about you anyway.
The gym I go to enforce the rules around putting weights back and using collars on barbell. It makes a massive difference as everyone just automatically does it now.
If you're training properly then there's always the danger you may struggle with the last rep or two, so not having collars on when other people are around is potentially dangerous (with the possibly exception of a deadlift). There's so little effort required to put them on that there really is no excuse not to use them.
If you’re training properly then there’s always the danger you may struggle with the last rep or two
That's a very old-school macho attitude. Unless you're lifting to the point of form breakdown you're not training 'properly'?
There's plenty of evidence to show that lifting to a lower percentage of your 1RM and doing fewer reps can deliver better results than going up to the point of failure, especially in the long term.
If you're worried that there are too many people around and it would be unsafe to lift without collars or clips then I'd say it's best to only train in the quiet periods. If you think there's a risk of form breakdown then no one should just be milling around nearby.
If you’re worried that there are too many people around and it would be unsafe to lift without collars or clips then I’d say it’s best to only train in the quiet periods.
Or just use the clips?
Ok, I'll rephrase. If you're doing more power based movements (big compound movements, relatively few reps, heavy weights etc.), then clips are important. If something goes wrong then it could be dangerous.
If you're doing lower weight, higher rep, very controlled movements, then it's far less likely to go wrong. Still, I don't see why the 10 seconds to put clips on is such a big deal though, and getting rid of the elitist/macho image around putting clips on is much easier than getting every single person to do a sensible risk assessment every single time they lift anything.
Losing control of the bar is dangerous. Clips aren't going to save you or people round about you. If you drop the bar at the bottom of a squat and it rolls away, the person whose leg it breaks isn't going to give you extra points because you had clips on the bar.
It's a fairly common phenomenon. People act in a way that puts themselves and others at risk and use some sort of partially appropriate safety equipment to make themselves feel better about it.
Then they go on an internet forum and chastise others for not being safe like them.
Clips won't help in that scenario, but they might in others. E.g. temporarily losing balance which causes the bar to wobble a bit.
Putting clips on doesn't stop someone from making the other safety checks (am I lifting with good form, is there enough space around me etc). For the sake of 10 seconds, I don't see a reason not to put them on.
You should definitely do that if you feel that's the safest thing to do.
Personally, I'll be sticking to leaving my ego at the door and lifting 80% of my 1RM for 3 instead of 90% of my 1RM for 4. If the plates haven't moved at all I'll know my form isn't breaking down.
Losing control of the bar is dangerous. Clips aren’t going to save you or people round about you. If you drop the bar at the bottom of a squat and it rolls away, the person whose leg it breaks isn’t going to give you extra points because you had clips on the bar.
You appear to be arguing for the sake of it. In my experience the kind of people who will be lifting more than they can handle and / or displaying bad form are the exact same ones who will ignore a simple request. Any decent gym will ask that you use clips and any reasonable person will comply. Things can, will and do go wrong regardless of experience. It’s always best to cover all bases where possible.
Bruce Wee, clearly the clips will not prevent injury in every scenario but what they do provide is a simple method to prevent weights falling from height onto another person (remember weights can bounce) in the event of loss of balance or injury which can happen on the lighter warm up sets too. To not be considerate enough to use this simple and effective safety device is extremely selfish and short sighted IMO
You appear to be arguing for the sake of it.
No, I'm arguing because the dangers of not using clips pales in comparison to the dangers of lifting weights that are so close to the limit of what you are capable of there's a risk of you losing control of the bar. I'd rather challenge the deep seated notion that if you're training 'properly' there's always a risk of form breaking down and losing control of the bar than chastise people who don't use clips.
Clips are kind of like helmets in cycling. They might help but there's probably somewhere else you should be looking to actually make things safer.
Clips are kind of like helmets in cycling. They might help but there’s probably somewhere else you should be looking to actually make things safer.
No because you're choice to not wear a helmet only makes YOU vulnerable to injury. Your refusal to collar your weights could cause potential injury to the person working out next to you, or walking past so it's not a personal choice to make.
OK, I tell you what. Find me one Gym Idiots video where not using clips was the root cause of the mishap. By that I mean, the person was lifting with good form, seemingly within their capabilities, and the bar suddenly tilted so much the plates moved. In fact, just show me a video of someone lifting within their capabilities, with or without clips, where the bar suddenly tilts enough for the plates to move.
You do that and I promise I'll never lift without clips again.
If you can't then do me a favour and focus your ire on people who lift too close to their limits with others around them rather than on those who don't use clips.
Why does the root cause matter though? It has no bearing on the OP. I agree that bad form and attempting a one rep max without spotters are both stupid. The thing is lifting can go wrong at any time for a multitude of reasons, not all of which are a result of bad form or ego
The general quality of the equipment can make a difference as well. For my home set-up I have a nice barbell, cost me over 500, the sleeves rotate easily and have etched rings on the which help grip the weights, most of my weight plates are decent quality that are a sung fit. Combined it is hard to envisage a situation where they would move. However I have some more economy plates (although by no means cheap crap) that are looser and I wouldn't trust as much, especially if all my plates were of that quality. I use clips habitually anyway.
Gyms do not typically have equipment of that standard.
whodathunkit, loads of testosterone in a gym (thread)!
collars for me but not when benching 20kg as a warm up btw
It's been three and a half years since I built my home gym, the only idiot in there is me! No wobbly dumbells from being dropped, no shouting or swearing and I can fart as much as I like!
I have spent probably more time than is strictly healthy in gyms of various types that run the gamut from old school powerlifting/bodybuilding through to council run leisure centres.
As ever the golden rule: don't be a dick.
RE: Collars specifically, if there is a reasonable chance the plates will come off - use them, especially if the fit of the plates and barbell is loose due to the cheap junk bars most gyms buy.
But... if plates are working their way down the barbell when you're squatting, deadlifting or benching your form must be absolute dogshit or you're lifting SOOOOOO much the bar is bending a lot. It's probably not the latter.
There is a case to be made for not using collars when benching on your own as you can ditch the weight if need be.
BillOddie
There is a case to be made for not using collars when benching on your own as you can ditch the weight if need be.
This. For some reason we have no safety bars on the benchpress bench at my gym so when I'm on my own I have no collars on in case I need to tip off the weights. For everything else I use them.
Putting dumbbells back on the rack after finishing with them should be mandatory.
A young bro was giving it the big un in my old gym squatting with poor form and too many plates on with no collars, the bar went flying through the air and could have seriously injured someone.
Similar thing happened when some lads removed about 80kg from one side of a racked barbell.
The general consensus is to go in the gym and mind your own business, but if i see someone doing something dangerous i can't ignore it unfortunately.
Having watched a kid get "trapped" under the bar when he was bench pressing the other day I think no collars is actually a good idea. The plates slipped off and he was able to then sort himself out. If he'd have had clips on then he'd have been struggling more than he was.
I think no clips are therefore safer than not. I am not going to go into the know your limits, never work out alone as thats a different conversation.
There is a case to be made for not using collars when benching on your own as you can ditch the weight if need be.
Never thought of that, it's good advice cheers.
I work out alone at home so this will let me drop those 2lb plates off the sides if I need to 🙂
There is a case to be made for not using collars when benching <span style="text-decoration: underline;">on your own</span> as you can ditch the weight if need be.
On your own doesn't apply to a public gym unless there is nobody else there obviously, in which case, use collars, don't use collars, it doesn't matter. In a busy gym, nobody is going to stand by and watch you choke to death, whereas if you are pinned and panic you could ditch the weights potentially on to me if I'm loading my bar at that time.
I think no clips are therefore safer than not. I am not going to go into the know your limits, never work out alone as thats a different conversation.
In that situation, yes. In every other situation, no
Watching people injure themselves is one of life’s simple pleasures.
Never felt the need for collars as a rule. Have yet to launch a barbell through imbalance and plate loss.
Did use them for snatch & clean/press.
What BruceWee said, basically. Don't try and work over your ability.
I've never been to a gym to lift weights but this whole form/ability/performance argument is bollocks in light of the fact that the debate is about public gyms where by their very definition there is a wide range of abilities and attitudes present. Unfortunately 'public' means minimum standards for the benefit of everyone and a simple mechanism that stops heavy lumps of metal dropping from the sky or bouncing into you seems like one of those minimum standards. You know, like you're not allowed to heavy pet, smoke or top bomb in the swimming pool next door which is why you book a holiday to a place with a private (not public) pool.
Guy that I go to the gym with was deadlifting 240kg this week, he uses collars and is not a d*ck.
<p>I may be a tad biased as I work for a risk management consultancy but if this scenario was transferred to an industrial setting with weights being raised manually in areas with foot traffic, securing that weight would be a minimum requirement under the ALARP principal.</p>
It's safer not having the clips if you're benching on your own without safeties (I don't do that personally though). When doing deadlift warm-up sets sometimes I don't bother with the clips.
But putting the weights away and generally tidying up after yourself - I don't understand why so many people are so bad at that? Don't they find it annoying to find a bar racked with a loads of weight on it, so you don't know if someone is in the midst of something? And doesn't anyone who isn't clueless always start with an empty bar for their warm-up sets?