Equipment calculation
Barbell plate loading calculator
Enter your bar and available plates. Find a symmetric load, compare nearby totals, or reduce changes from your current setup. No training or1RM advice.
Default masses are examples. Available quantities start at zero: enter your actual inventory. Counts are for both sides combined; the reference column is per side.
Enter your counts, then calculate.
Symmetric loading options
On-device equipment
Up to five local profiles; restored masses/counts are validated. Target mass is retained when equipment is restored. Data never uploads.
Method and sources
- Method / source
- Bounded dynamic programming: merge equal weights, use floor(total count/2) as the per-side limit, scale canonical integer masses by their GCD, and enumerate reachable side weights while retaining the best combination under the selected tie-break. Total=bar+2×side mass.
- Who it suits
- People who know the target, bar mass and actual available plate counts.
- Who it does not suit
- Training prescriptions, technique, rankings or equipment safety certification.
- Limitations
- Only listed inventory is used. Unpaired plates are unused. Limits:12 input rows,0–100 plates per row,50000 search states; exceeding them produces an explicit error.
- Explanation updated
- Algorithm explanation updated:2026-11-13
Frequently asked
Are available counts per side or for both sides?
Enter the total available for both sides. Three plates of one weight permit one per side and leave one unused. Duplicate weights are merged before pairing. No extra inventory is assumed.
How does fewer changes work?
Enter current plates per side as the reference. Candidates still sort by absolute distance from the target first; equal differences prefer the smallest sum of additions/removals per side. Alternative combinations at the same total use this rule too. A blank reference is zero, and a distant weight is not promoted just to avoid changing plates.
Does switching kg/lb change the equipment?
No. Canonical mass is retained, with1lb=0.45359237kg. Switching only changes its display and does not parse rounded fields back in. Up to six decimals are shown. Manually editing a converted number replaces that value. A tiny conversion difference is reported rather than called exact.
What if an exact load is unavailable?
Up to seven nearby reachable totals and deltas are shown, with reasons: below the bar, insufficient total plates or no exact combination. Bounded dynamic programming avoids greedy false negatives. A search over50000 states stops explicitly and asks for a simpler inventory; incomplete search is never reported as no solution.
Does it give training or safety advice?
No. It checks mass and left/right symmetry only, not1RM, programmes, technique, equipment compatibility or bar capacity. Include any accessories you want counted in the bar weight; collars or other masses are not assumed.