how much weight is a plate on a machine?

  • So at my office gym there is a LifeFitness Fit3 machine, which is basically like a three-station multigym. It has weight stacks, but the plates are numbered starting from 1 instead of showing how many pounds they actually are. All I could find on the LifeFitness website was that the total amount of weight is 210 lbs for the whole stack.

    I don't remember how many plates there are, just that I used plate #5. Anyone have any idea how many pounds that would be? Thanks!
  • It does really depend but my guess would probably be 10 lbs?

    Also, I don't know about the gym you used but weights on a machine don't really translate well to even other machines sometimes let alone free weights. So 50 lbs on a one machine may be equivalent to 40 on another and possibly 20 lbs using free weights.
  • Those numbers really don't mean anything other than 5 is heavier than 1. Sometimes it's not even linear if the machine has been recabled or pieces taken off the ends of the cables and they fray and the end "balls" have to be re-attached.

    No matter what the actual plate weighs, the physics of the cable have an effect on how hard it is to lift it.
  • Thanks for the info, guys!
  • I've never heard of such a thing. Sorry!