Well, that explains it...

suezensays

I have been struggling to advance on my OHP weight for awhile now. I've been stuck at 30lbs (please don't laugh). I could damn near throw the bar in the air and catch it, baton-style, with 30 lbs on there. Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, but whenever I tried to advance to 35lbs, I struggled. Like, blood-vessel-popping-bad-form struggled. It was frustrating.

The set is borrowed, and I've always taken the weight at face value. So I finally had the bright idea to actually weigh the weights...

My 15 lb weights weigh in at 14.5...fairly close to what they should be. My 17.5 lb-ers weighed in at 21.5 lbs.

Ah! That explains it.

Times two weights...that's 8 lbs more than I thought I was lifting. It doesn't seem like a lot, until it is, lol.

cjh022

That would do it! My 35lb dumbbell at home weighs about 36.5 lbs in reality, and the ones at the gym always feel waayy lighter to me. They are different types but I'm guessing the gym ones are really about 34lbs, though I haven't brought my scale to the gym to weigh them! (it is a very small gym at my apartment complex and doesn't have a scale, or much of anything for that matter). I usually use the 40lbs at the gym and is only slightly harder than the "35lbs" at home. Following the trends of those kind, they probably weigh about 38lbs...

That explains why my home workouts always feel tougher even though they are often only half the length of the "gym" workouts...