Getbig.com: American Bodybuilding, Fitness and Figure
Getbig Main Boards => Gossip & Opinions => Topic started by: Royalty on March 11, 2022, 03:49:28 PM
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Standard plates w/1” hole. Anyone ever use these?
Funk51, any experience with these plates?
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Wow, I`ve never seen these before.
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they have 75's, 100's from the old standard sets from long ago. nice plates.
come in handy for the home gym for plate loaded things (lat-machine, etc).
(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tias.com%2Fstores%2Fadsbydee%2Fpictures%2F16682a.jpg&f=1&nofb=1)
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Alot of iron , wrap some turns of copper to make an iducter for heat
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Standard plates w/1” hole. Anyone ever use these?
Funk51, any experience with these plates?
yup they came with the hercules 555 set.
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The Strong Product History of York Barbell
Throughout its 88 years in business, the York Barbell Company has manufactured various styles of exercise equipment. As the years went by, products evolved to meet the needs of each era. One product that evolved to meet the needs of its time period was the York Swing Bar Wartime Model. This product was manufactured during World War II. During that time manufacturing restrictions and material shortages were troubling businesses all over the country. While York Barbell Company’s products were not on the restricted list, it was noted that it would be “very patriotic” if York Barbell could find other materials to make products with. The York Swing Bar Wartime Model was made with noncritical items. This set gave York Barbell the chance to thrive during the war. This set was produced with composition plates. These plates weighed the same as cast iron plates but were larger and bulkier in size. The Swing Bar Wartime Model was a complete hit with York Barbell customers during the war. Surprisingly, not one customer reported any composition plates breaking during the shipping process or during use. These unique plates far exceeded the durability of their thinner counterpart the iron plate as they were noted to be “so strong, so tough, so durable, that they can be tossed around upon the concrete” and not break. The plates were a new adventure for York Barbell during World War II, but the swing bar was a revolutionary idea for that era. The exercises that could be done with the swing bar were numerous. It would provide the world of lifting a new look at exercises that could develop every part of the body.
York Swing Bar Wartime Model
The York Swing Bar Wartime Model was made up of one 4’6” long bar, one 18” short bar, 60lbs of composition weights, several smaller plates, 8 heavy-duty collars, Bob Hoffman’s Simplified System of barbell training booklet, and the New Swing bar system of training booklet. The entire 110lb set was sold for $15.00 plus $1.00 for tax. The 18” bar in the set could be put together and used for swing training or as a single heavy dumbbell. The two 48-page booklets provided exercises and courses that could be done with the weights and bars in the set. Smaller plates came with the 10lb composition weights to allow for 1 1/4lb increases in weight on the bars.
Dorcus Lehman - Composition Plates on a long bar
Over 2000 sets were produced and shipped to customers. These customers provided nothing but a positive response during that time. The York Swing Bar Wartime Model was a necessity to make by York Barbell. They needed to create fitness equipment that would do well in times of restriction and shortage due to the war. The York Swing Bar Wartime Model was produced during the war, in order to accommodate to the times, but quickly became a part of the future of weightlifting.
Plate Dumbbells
Ref: Strength and Health, January 1944, Pg. 6
Strength and Health, January 1944, Pg. 16-7; Pg. 43. “Necessity… The Mother of Invention by Dick Zimmerman”.
York Barbell Company – Wartime Products Photographs
Gord Venables - Composition Plate dumbbellsGord Venables - Composition Plate swing barYork Barbell Wartime Victory Set
POSTED ON AUG 21, 2020 IN BLOG
MORE STORIES https://yorkbarbell.com/2020/08/york-barbell-company-product-history/
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Standard plates w/1” hole. Anyone ever use these?
Funk51, any experience with these plates?
They had them in San Quentin in the 1980's. Heavy sobs.
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there's a story on the 75 york olympic plates but I can't find it anywhere. as i remember jcg had a pair of york 75 lb olympic plates made up they were made up to look like the deep dish 45's. the purpose was to humble guys. a guy would come in and think the 75's were 45's and wonder why they felt so weak that day. imagine you can clean and press 225 but with these plates the load would actually be 285 , a big difference.
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there's a lot of stories on york in the book pic'd below.
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(http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=677740.0;attach=1355086;image)
Cool artwork by Lyman Dally.
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Agreed on them being handy for certain machines, and if you use a standard bar for deadlifts. I wouldn't want them for anything else. Loading plates over #55 gets old fast, especially when things get sweaty. Standards are harder to load than Olympics too. I have seen some of these 75's milled out to Olympic sized, I wouldn't mind a set or two of those.
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there's a story on the 75 york olympic plates but I can't find it anywhere. as i remember jcg had a pair of york 75 lb olympic plates made up they were made up to look like the deep dish 45's. the purpose was to humble guys. a guy would come in and think the 75's were 45's and wonder why they felt so weak that day. imagine you can clean and press 225 but with these plates the load would actually be 285 , a big difference.
I remember the stories about them too. I think they were posted to Joe Roark's Iron History board.
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Arms and Shoulders, Part Two - Harry Paschall -
http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2010/06/ (scroll down).
"Some dozen years ago we spent quite a lot of time around the York Barbell Club Gym in York, Pennsylvania. Probably the most famous strength and muscle stars in the whole world trained at York. Back around 1940 a big six-footer from the neighboring village of Carlisle named Jake Hitchens began to haunt the gym. Jake was not at all interested in strength, but he was enthralled by large muscular girths. He had the idea that the way to get big muscles was to do exercises with BIG weights. So he followed John Grimek and Steve Stanko through their exercise routines, but instead of using 25- to 60-pound dumbells in the various chest- and shoulder-building routines used by these mighty champions, he insisted on using 75- and 100-lb. dumbells. Of course, he couldn’t do the movements exactly like John and Steve, so he bent his arms at the elbow instead of keeping the arms straight, and thus reduced the strain. He did curls by bouncing, bending back, and swinging the bell; he pressed the bar overhead with a push and shove. He absolutely refused to do deep knee bends. Results: Jake grew 18-inch arms and a 50-inch chest. He was the first man, to our knowledge, to go all-out for “Cheating” exercises.
We would like to say, at this point, that Jake got very strong from this unorthodox practice, but this would not be so. He got bulk, this is true, but he was never anyway near as strong as he looked. We recall one time when the York boys played a dirty trick on Hitchens. There were four lifting platforms in the big gym, and each of them had a revolving York International bar. Jake liked to use the one on a platform close to the Dream Bench, so he could sit down and relax between sets. (The Dream Bench was so-called because so many lifters had rested on it while dreaming of becoming World Champion.) This bar, like the others, was usually loaded up with a pair of 45-lb. plates, which, with the weight of the bar, made up a barbell with a weight of 135 lb. (minus collars). Jake was accustomed to seizing this bar and doing a set of perhaps ten rough, violent presses to start his workout. Unknown to Hitchens, and to other strangers as well, the boys at the York foundry had cast a number of plates somewhat thicker than the regular 45-lb. discs, which looked exactly like the usual weights. These super-discs weighed 75-lbs. each. So one day the boys fixed up Jake’s favorite bar with 75’s instead of 45’s so that it weighed 195 instead of 135.
Jake, always a breezy conversationalist, came rushing into the gym, full of vim, vigor and vitality. He felt super, he opined, and would show the boys how to take a real rough workout. He grabbed his warmup bell. It went to the shoulders, a little harder than usual, but when he started to push it vigorously overhead his first violent shove only carried it as high as his nose, and it began to sink downward. The boys in the gym began to gather round. “What’s the trouble, Jake?” they asked solicitously. “Are you sick?” Do the weights feel heavy today?” Poor Jake was completely dumbfounded. He thought he was losing his strength. He tried the bar again, and again, and still couldn’t lift it. He asked on of the others to try it, and of course the weight of 195 meant nothing to guys like Grimek and Stanko, and they played with it like a toy. Poor Hitchens decided he should see a doctor, and reluctantly put on his street clothes and went away. The next time he came into the gym the 75-lb. phony plates had been removed, and Jake was back to normal."
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Standard plates w/1” hole. Anyone ever use these?
Funk51, any experience with these plates?
Those plates were used on plate loading vertical leg press and calf raise machines up till the early 1980s.
Very common then.
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My very first set of weights was a York 45 pound set. All metal, no plastic or rubber. And I got an exercise chart with it.
It’s sad what’s happened to York Barbell. Rogue is killing them. Probably a good example of a onetime well managed company (by Bob Hoffman) and newer management just running it into nowhere.
Photo of company from two years ago:
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My very set of weights was a York 45 pound set. All metal, no plastic or rubber. And I got an exercise chart with it.
It’s sad what’s happened to York Barbell. Rogue is killing them. Probably a good example of a onetime well managed company (by Bob Hoffman) and newer management just running it into nowhere.
Photo of company from two years ago:
Rogue didn't kill York. York died long before Rogue existed. Rogue is much higher level and is way beyond competing with York who basically now sells Chinese made weights.
Bob Hoffman ran it into the ground himself.
There was never anything special about York plates. They were good quality of course and the plates were fairly accurate. York bars were good. Not Eleiko good.
Low foreign production costs wiped out American foundry made plates and bars.
York plates are now made in Asia usually China. Some York bars are made in a foundry in Canada near Toronto.
The guy who nows owns York is from Canada. He saved York.
The only York stuff made in the USA is certain wood platforms and plyo boxes type stuff.
Any Made in USA made bars and plates are very expensive. Not because they are necessarily better but because of higher production costs in the USA.
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WOW, great information... thanks
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My very set of weights was a York 45 pound set. All metal, no plastic or rubber. And I got an exercise chart with it.
It’s sad what’s happened to York Barbell. Rogue is killing them. Probably a good example of a onetime well managed company (by Bob Hoffman) and newer management just running it into nowhere.
Photo of company from two years ago:
I haven't been there since 2007.
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&t=23s
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No exhibits at the York Museum have been updated in many years.
It's like time stopped sometime in the 70s.
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I remember the stories about them too. I think they were posted to Joe Roark's Iron History board.
Edit -
Arms and Shoulders, Part Two - Harry Paschall -
http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2010/06/ (scroll down).
"Some dozen years ago we spent quite a lot of time around the York Barbell Club Gym in York, Pennsylvania. Probably the most famous strength and muscle stars in the whole world trained at York. Back around 1940 a big six-footer from the neighboring village of Carlisle named Jake Hitchens began to haunt the gym. Jake was not at all interested in strength, but he was enthralled by large muscular girths. He had the idea that the way to get big muscles was to do exercises with BIG weights. So he followed John Grimek and Steve Stanko through their exercise routines, but instead of using 25- to 60-pound dumbells in the various chest- and shoulder-building routines used by these mighty champions, he insisted on using 75- and 100-lb. dumbells. Of course, he couldn’t do the movements exactly like John and Steve, so he bent his arms at the elbow instead of keeping the arms straight, and thus reduced the strain. He did curls by bouncing, bending back, and swinging the bell; he pressed the bar overhead with a push and shove. He absolutely refused to do deep knee bends. Results: Jake grew 18-inch arms and a 50-inch chest. He was the first man, to our knowledge, to go all-out for “Cheating” exercises.
We would like to say, at this point, that Jake got very strong from this unorthodox practice, but this would not be so. He got bulk, this is true, but he was never anyway near as strong as he looked. We recall one time when the York boys played a dirty trick on Hitchens. There were four lifting platforms in the big gym, and each of them had a revolving York International bar. Jake liked to use the one on a platform close to the Dream Bench, so he could sit down and relax between sets. (The Dream Bench was so-called because so many lifters had rested on it while dreaming of becoming World Champion.) This bar, like the others, was usually loaded up with a pair of 45-lb. plates, which, with the weight of the bar, made up a barbell with a weight of 135 lb. (minus collars). Jake was accustomed to seizing this bar and doing a set of perhaps ten rough, violent presses to start his workout. Unknown to Hitchens, and to other strangers as well, the boys at the York foundry had cast a number of plates somewhat thicker than the regular 45-lb. discs, which looked exactly like the usual weights. These super-discs weighed 75-lbs. each. So one day the boys fixed up Jake’s favorite bar with 75’s instead of 45’s so that it weighed 195 instead of 135.
Jake, always a breezy conversationalist, came rushing into the gym, full of vim, vigor and vitality. He felt super, he opined, and would show the boys how to take a real rough workout. He grabbed his warmup bell. It went to the shoulders, a little harder than usual, but when he started to push it vigorously overhead his first violent shove only carried it as high as his nose, and it began to sink downward. The boys in the gym began to gather round. “What’s the trouble, Jake?” they asked solicitously. “Are you sick?” Do the weights feel heavy today?” Poor Jake was completely dumbfounded. He thought he was losing his strength. He tried the bar again, and again, and still couldn’t lift it. He asked on of the others to try it, and of course the weight of 195 meant nothing to guys like Grimek and Stanko, and they played with it like a toy. Poor Hitchens decided he should see a doctor, and reluctantly put on his street clothes and went away. The next time he came into the gym the 75-lb. phony plates had been removed, and Jake was back to normal."
thanks i had forgotten where i heard this story.
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Check out this old dumbbell I have. I guess it’s an old York but the k is missing.Anyone guess how old this thing is.
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Rogue didn't kill York. York died long before Rogue existed. Rogue is much higher level and is way beyond competing with York who basically now sells Chinese made weights.
Bob Hoffman ran it into the ground himself.
There was never anything special about York plates. They were good quality of course and the plates were fairly accurate. York bars were good. Not Eleiko good.
Low foreign production costs wiped out American foundry made plates and bars.
York plates are now made in Asia usually China. Some York bars are made in a foundry in Canada near Toronto.
The guy who nows owns York is from Canada. He saved York.
The only York stuff made in the USA is certain wood platforms and plyo boxes type stuff.
Any Made in USA made bars and plates are very expensive. Not because they are necessarily better but because of higher production costs in the USA.
Didn't Hoffman employ the lifters at York in the foundry?
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Check out this old dumbbell I have. I guess it’s an old York but the k is missing.Anyone guess how old this thing is.
I bought some just like those in 1965 from york. so they are at least 57 years old.
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Didn't Hoffman employ the lifters at York in the foundry?
Yes, Grimek, March, Terpak, Benarski, etc..... If Hoffman liked you and thought you were a good fit, you got some sort of job there. If you didn't get a job there, maybe he helped you in a different way, there was a lifter named William Terry, Hoffman helped him get a diner in town for being loyal.
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"Back around 1940 a big six-footer from the neighboring village of Carlisle named Jake Hitchens began to haunt the gym. Jake was not at all interested in strength, but he was enthralled by large muscular girths." -
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Grimek and Hitchens in the clip above, good shots at 1:01 and 1:40. Grimek in the middle, I think Hitchens is on the right side. Interesting to see them next to normal people of the time.
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Didn't Hoffman employ the lifters at York in the foundry?
yup that was his lifting team.
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I bought some just like those in 1965 from york. so they are at least 57 years old.
thanks funk
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Standard plates w/1” hole. Anyone ever use these?
Funk51, any experience with these plates?
Yes,have a couple at my gym. Use them for my neck harness