Fractional Plates: What They Are and When You Need Them

Fractional plates are small weight plates, typically 0.25kg to 2.5kg (with 0.5kg, 1kg and 1.25kg the most common sizes), that let you add 0.5kg to 2kg to a barbell rather than the usual 5kg jump you get from a pair of 2.5kg plates. If your overhead press or bench press has stalled on a weight you can't quite move up from, they're probably the cheapest fix in your home gym.

Why a 5kg jump is bigger than it looks

The smallest plate in most home gym sets is 2.5kg, and you need one on each side, so every jump adds 5kg to the bar. That sounds modest until you work it out as a percentage of what you're lifting.

Lift and current weight	+5kg (2 x 2.5kg)	+2kg (2 x 1kg)	+1kg (2 x 0.5kg)
Overhead press, 40kg	12.5%	5%	2.5%
Bench press, 60kg	8.3%	3.3%	1.7%
Barbell curl, 30kg	16.7%	6.7%	3.3%
Squat, 120kg	4.2%	1.7%	0.8%
Deadlift, 200kg	2.5%	1%	0.5%

A 5kg jump on a 200kg deadlift is 2.5%, which is nothing. On a 40kg press it's 12.5%, and asking your shoulders to handle an eighth more weight from one session to the next is how linear progress grinds to a halt. The American College of Sports Medicine's position stand on progression in resistance training suggests raising the load by about 2% to 10% once you can beat your target reps, and for small lifts a 2.5kg plate pair overshoots that range by a wide margin.

So fractionals earn their keep on the light lifts: the press, curls, rows, lateral raises on a plate-loaded handle, and the bench for anyone pressing under about 80kg. If you don't know your starting numbers precisely, check how much your barbell weighs first, because a 15kg bar mislabelled as 20kg throws all of this off.

Types of fractional plates

Steel fractional plates

Machined or chrome-plated steel discs, usually 0.25kg to 1kg, about 10cm across and very thin. They're the most common type for home use because they take up almost no room on the sleeve and good ones are calibrated to within about 10g. The thinness matters on a loaded bar: you can slide a 1kg steel plate on outside your 20kg plates and still have plenty of sleeve left for a collar.

Rubber-coated change plates

Thicker rubber or polyurethane discs, often colour-coded to the IWF scheme, in 0.5kg to 2.5kg. They're quieter and kinder to the floor if one rolls off the rack, but a pair of 2.5kg rubber change plates can be twice the width of a steel equivalent. Weightlifting clubs use them for changing attempts between lifts; at home, they make sense if you already train with bumper plates and want a matching set.

Magnetic micro plates

These are a different animal. Magnetic plates (PlateMate is the best-known brand) are small weights, often around 0.5kg, that stick to the end of a dumbbell or a weight stack pin rather than sliding over a sleeve. They're the answer if most of your training is with fixed or adjustable dumbbells, where the jump from 10kg to 12.5kg is a 25% increase per hand. They're pricier per kilo and only as secure as the magnet, so check the plate sits flat on your dumbbell end before you press anything overhead with one.

50mm vs 1 inch holes

Get this wrong and the plates are useless. Olympic bars, Olympic EZ bars and most plate-loaded dumbbell handles sold in the UK have 50mm (2 inch) sleeves, and that's what nearly every fractional set on Amazon is cut for.

Older or cheaper "standard" bars have 1 inch sleeves (roughly 25mm to 30mm in practice, depending on the maker). Fractional plates for these exist but they're much scarcer, so if you're running a 1 inch spinlock set, magnetic plates or 0.5kg standard plates are often the easier route. Our weight plates guide covers the bore difference in more detail if you're still choosing a system.

A microloading example: linear progression with 1kg jumps

Here's how fractional plates slot into a simple plan. Imagine an overhead press at 35kg for 3 sets of 5, trained twice a week. The usual approach adds 2.5kg a side every session until you fail. With fractionals you add 1kg total (a 0.5kg plate each side) instead.

Week	Session 1	Session 2
1	35kg 3x5	36kg 3x5
2	37kg 3x5	38kg 3x5
3	39kg 3x5	40kg 3x5
4	41kg 3x5	42kg 3x5

That's 7kg in four weeks, and every session is a jump of under 3%. The 5kg version would have hit 40kg, 45kg and then probably a failed set at 50kg by the second week. When the 1kg jumps start to feel heavy, drop to 0.5kg (two 0.25kg plates), or hold the weight and add a rep to each set before adding load again.

That last option isn't a cop-out. A 2022 study in PeerJ compared adding load with adding reps over eight weeks and found similar gains in muscle size and strength from both, so a stalled lift doesn't always need more weight on the bar. Fractionals just give you the choice.

The same logic applies to the overhead press variations that stall fastest, like the strict seated Z press, where you can't use your legs to cheat a heavier jump.

When not to bother

Fractional plates are a fix for small jumps, not a training plan. Skip them, at least for now, if any of these sound like you:

• You're in your first few months of lifting and still adding 2.5kg to 5kg a session to everything without missing reps. Early on, bigger jumps work and you'll waste weeks crawling up in 1kg steps.
• You mostly train squats and deadlifts above 100kg. A 5kg jump there is under 5%, and many people progress fine for years without anything smaller.
• Your training is high-rep circuits or conditioning work, where nobody notices whether the bar weighs 40kg or 41kg.

And if accuracy really matters to you (a powerlifter peaking for a meet, say), cheap cast plates can be off by more than the fractional you're adding. That's where calibrated plates come in.

Fractional plates worth buying

Both sets below are steel, 50mm bore, go down to 0.25kg and come with a bag to stop the little ones vanishing under the bench. We haven't tested either in person; this is based on the listings and the specs.

Mirafit Olympic Fractional Weight Plate Set

Mirafit's set has a pair each of 0.25kg, 0.5kg, 0.75kg and 1kg plates, so 5kg in total, in chrome-plated steel. The listing says each plate is calibrated to plus or minus 10g, and they're 10.5cm across, with the 1kg plate 2cm thick. With those four pairs you can make any increment from 0.5kg to 5kg in 0.5kg steps. It's around £50 at the time of writing.

Check price on Amazon

GYM MASTER Olympic Fractional Weight Plates, 5kg Set

GYM MASTER sells the same pairing (0.25kg, 0.5kg, 0.75kg, 1kg) in machined steel for around £40 at the time of writing, which makes it the better buy if price is the deciding factor. The listing also quotes plus or minus 10g calibration, with weights stamped on the face and a reinforced carry bag. The one caveat is that GYM MASTER says it isn't suitable for commercial use, which won't matter in a garage but rules it out for a gym floor.

Check price on Amazon

For more kit ideas, the home gym hub has our plate, bar and rack guides in one place.

Recommended reads

• Best weight plates UK
• How much does a barbell weigh?
• Overhead press: how to do it
• Z press guide
• Home gym equipment hub