Load the bar, don't do the arithmetic

Most plate calculators answer one question: “I want 102.5 kg, what do I put on?” That’s the question you have while planning. Mid-set, the question is usually the other way round: the bar is already loaded, someone left a 15 and two 2.5s on one side, and you want to know what it weighs so you can log it.

So the calculator in Tools, and on every barbell set, now has two modes.

Load the bar

Pick the bar, then tap plates. Each tap adds that plate to each side, because nobody loads one side at a time on paper. The bar drawing fills from the inside out, heaviest first, and tapping a plate on the drawing takes it off again. Underneath it says 20 bar + 2 × (20 + 10 + 1.25) and the total in big numbers. From a set, Use 82.5 kg puts it straight into the weight field.

When you open it from a set that already has a weight, it starts with that weight loaded, so you’re correcting rather than starting over.

From a total

Type the target and it lays out each side, greedily from the heaviest plate you have. If the plates can’t make it exactly, it says how far short you are and the closest weight you can make, instead of quietly rounding.

Which bar

The bar is the part people forget. A 20 kg bar, a 15 kg bar, a 10 kg EZ bar, a 25 kg specialty bar: the choice is remembered per exercise on this device, so curls keep the EZ bar and squats keep the Olympic one. A custom weight is one field away for the odd bar at your gym.

If you’ve set up a gym with its own plates and bar, that gym’s set is used instead of a full commercial one, and its bar is marked gym in the list.

Units

Everything works in your own unit. In pounds the standard bar is 45 and the plates are pound plates; nothing converts behind your back and rounds 20 kg into 44.09 lb.

It’s a small tool. It’s also the one you reach for with chalk on your hands, which is why it’s two taps rather than a form.