There are certain key things to look for when purchasing bumper plates. One of the major things to look for is bounce, and very little bounce to be specific. Certain bumpers out there like the Hi-Temp bumper plates offered by Rogue Fitness give a really high bounce. This isn’t optimal for Olympic lifters, crossfitters, or power lifters because you don’t want to ever be chasing your bar. You also don’t want the weight to do work for you, which would be an inaccurate measurement of your performance. However, there are plates that bounce out there with a dead blow bounce, or very little bounce at all. These are the more preferred types of Olympic bumper plates because when they land, then barely come off the ground. No more chasing your bar around after it lands if you buy cheap bumper plates. If you need another reason, just copy what the professionals do. The Olympics use Eleiko bumper plates which have a dead blow bounce as well.
Another thing to consider when searching for bumpers is what kind of guarantees or guidelines they follow as a company. Do they guarantee plates to be within a certain amount of weight, say ten grams or so? This is very important when you are throwing the weights overhead and require every muscle in your body to balance. Pendlay offers a dead blow bounce bumper plate, and they also put their plates on high sensitive calibrated scales to make sure they send you a very high quality plate. This is important because if you order a forty five pound plate, you don’t want to see a forty six pound plate show up. A five pound difference on one side of the bar can make a huge difference.
Also, if you buy from someone who follows very strict standards and puts all their information out there to see, and it doesn’t show up as advertised, you have more footing. However, a lot of these stores just have a couple sentences with some flashy catch words. Avoid this kind of stuff, and go with someone who is unafraid of putting out all the details of the product you are getting. You will be a lot happier in the end when you purchase a set of weight lifting plates.