Beginners frequently wonder what the weight of the Planet Fitness Smith machine bar is. In this article, you’ll find the solution.
Unlike some racks or straightforward free weights, Smith machines are complex mechanisms with moving parts. Of all the powerlifting maneuvers, they are the safest. As opposed to a free-weight Olympic bar, which can simply be weighed on a scale, the Smith machine weight bar is attached to clamps, bearings, a guide bar, and rollers.
In this article, I’ll go over the weight of the Smith machine bar at Planet Fitness.
How Much Does the Bar at Planet Fitness Weigh?
An item used for weightlifting or bodybuilding is a Smith machine. If you’ve never worked out before, you might have questions about the bar weight on the Planet Fitness Smith machine. Actually, the weight of something is just a number followed by a weight unit (a kilogram or pound).
But it appears that the Smith machine barbell has no set weight. Depending on various factors, it can weigh anywhere between 6 and 45 pounds.
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What is a Smith Machine?
A Smith machine is a weight-lifting machine with a barbell that is fixed within a set of steel rails, allowing it to only move strictly up and down in a vertical (or nearly vertical) path.
A Smith machine’s barbell has two rotating hooks, one on each side, that allow you to lock the bar in place along a number of lockout points. The ability to quickly lock the bar to exit an exercise, lets you start with the bar at various heights and gives the lifter some measure of safety.
What is the Starting Weight of a Smith Machine?
Let’s start by establishing the facts of this. In actuality, there is no set weight for a Smith machine barbell. They are standardized to a weight of 20 kg (45 lbs), unlike Olympic barbells, which are heavier.
In light of this, the initial weight of a Smith machine (i.e., the bar only; plates are not included) will depend on the specific Smith machine you are using.
Another outstanding aspect of the Smith machine is that most of them are constructed with lighter starting weights than most Olympic barbells. For instance, an Olympic barbell weighs about 45 pounds on average (with the exception of women’s Olympic barbells).
However, the majority of Smith machines at commercial gyms weigh between 15 and 25 pounds on average. A Smith machine, on the other hand, typically weighs anywhere from 6 to 45+ pounds.
Fortunately, I’m here to assist you in learning the typical weight of the most popular Smith machine types as well as how you can determine the weight on your own if your Smith machine is not one of the ones I discuss here.
Pro Tip: A label that displays the bar’s weight is found on the side of many Smith machines. So, you can start by looking around your Smith machine. If you can’t see it, check the Smith machine’s manufacturer’s website to see if they have provided the barbell weight or not.
How Much Does the Bar on a Smith Machine Weigh?
The Smith machine bar should have enough strength to support the entire weight of the plates even though it is not required to do so. The Smith machine bars are designed to offer that much power.
If the Smith’s bare bar were taken out and weighed, it would be between 30 and 40 pounds (13.6 and 18.1 kgs) in weight. With the aid of counterbalance weights and angle motion, the machine makers try to keep the effective weight of the Smith bar at about 15 pounds (6.8 kg).
Counterbalanced Smith Machines
To offset the weight of the Smith bar, some Smith machines have counterbalance weights. At the top, there is a pulley with a rope crossing it; one end of the rope is attached to the bar, and the other end is connected to the balancing weights.
By pulling the Smith machine barbell up with a force equal to its weight, the counterbalancing weights work against the barbell’s weight. The counterbalancing weights lessen the effective weight of the bar even though the Smith machine barbell weighs about 30 pounds.
Although they are capable of doing so, they do not use offset weights to balance the weight of the Smith machine barbell. If you did that, the bar would bump against the top or bottom.
The majority of commercially available counterbalanced Smith machines have a 15 lb (6.8 kg) effective bar weight.
In a counterbalanced Smith machine, movement speed has an impact on the effective weight of the bar in addition to the counterbalance weights.
As you raise the bar, the offset weights move downward. When the counterbalance weight abruptly stops moving at the end of the movement, the momentum they had built up just before that point works against the weight of the loaded bar, further reducing the effective weight of the Smith machine bar.
Additionally, spring action has an impact on the bar’s actual weight. The spring is set up to lessen the impact and jerks at the beginning and end of the movement.
There are too many calculations involved in determining how the effective weight of the bar will change as a result of momentum transfer and spring action, and the result is not very significant. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, the average bar weight for the Smith machine can be assumed to be 15 pounds (6.8 kg).
Smith Machines Without Counter-Weights
The Smith machine bar is almost identical to the Olympic weightlifting bar in terms of appearance, length, weight plate compatibility, and weight capacity. The only possible difference between the free Olympic bar and the Smith machine bar is the material used to make the bar, which is fixed on the machine and moves in a fixed movement pattern in contrast to the free Olympic bar.
The Smith machine bar is supported by clamps, slides, and bearings as opposed to the Olympic weightlifting bar, so it doesn’t require the same tensile strength to carry the same amount of weight. As a result, the Smith machine bar is lighter and less powerful than the conventional Olympic bar.
The majority of Olympic barbells weigh 44 pounds (20 kg), but the weight of the non-counterbalanced Smith machine bars ranges from 30 to 40 pounds (13.6 to 18.1 kg).
Angled Smith Machines
With and without counterbalancing weight, angled Smith machines are available. The barbells on the machines without counterbalancing weights weigh between 30 and 40 pounds.
Similar barbells are used in angled Smith machines with counterbalance weights, but the effective weight of the bar is determined by the interaction between the weight of the bar and the offset weight forces.
To determine the actual weight of the smith machine bar in this situation, you can’t simply take the counterbalance weights out of the bar’s weight. Due to the offset weight’s effective force on the bar’s weight having a vector component that moves with the Smith bar, In comparison to the counterbalance’s actual weight, this component is lighter.
The manufacturers choose the counterweight considering the effect of the angle of movement so as to keep the effective weight of the Smith machine bar equal to or near 15 pounds (6.8 kg).