Micro Gainz – Dumbbell Plates, Micro Plates, and More – 2024
We’ve been fans of Micro Gainz for quite some time. We own their original Micro Gainz fractional plates, we bought their first round of V1 Dumbbell Fractional Weight Plates. And now we own their new V2 Dumbbell Fractional Weight Plates. We even bought a pair of the newest V2 design, and the magnetic storage post. Today we are going to dig into all of these, share some thoughts on the full Micro Gainz offering, and hopefully help you decide if Micro Gainz is right for your home gym, or not.
Key Notes
Micro Gainz makes equipment that is affordable, Made In the USA, and helps you progress whether you are a big bad dude or smaller athlete.
Use code GGC10 to save 10%
Links throughout may include Affiliate Links. These help fund the site at no expense to you.
Transparency Note
Everything I own from Micro Gainz, we purchased ourselves for our gym. That said, Micro Gainz has been a sponsor of the Garage Gym Competition for a number of years. They pay us to promote their brand on that side of the house. We do not have an affiliate link with Micro Gainz, but we do have a Discount Code.
As always, my goal is to provide transparent and honest information. Thus, I like you to know the full story before we dive in.
Micro Gainz Overview
Micro Gainz started making fractional weight plates way back in 2016. Mike Reed, the owner and founder, is an avid lifter himself. He was following a basic linear progression model for strength training and was finding that 5lb increments were getting tough to progress week to week.
He did some research and quickly found out that there was a huge gap in the market for these types of micro plates. Anything under 5lbs was often INSANELY expensive, rarely accurate, and imported. So Mike began making his own weights and as they say, the rest is history. Mike uses that same approach, finding gaps in the market, to produce his others offerings. The vast majority of them revolving around making progressive overload easier.
We are big fans of progressive overload in our home gym. I write my wife’s programming, and she follows a pseudo DC training style approach where she rotates through a couple of exercises per movement pattern, and blasts them until she can not progress any further. Doing so with only 10lb jumps can be difficult. This is where Micro Gainz came into our life.
Micro Gainz Fractional Weight Plates
This is where our Micro Gainz journey began. We purchased a set of their Micro Gainz 8 Plate Set. This set includes 1lb, .75lb, .5lb, and .25lb plates. These get used for two primary purposes in my gym.
Micro Loading The Cable Stack
Our cable stack has 5lb jumps. This is adequate for the majority of big exercises. The problem tends to arise when we start looking at smaller movements like Lateral Raises. I’m 250+lbs, have been lifting for over two decades, and I still use about 15 to 20lbs on a lateral raise. My wife, who is significantly smaller, uses 5to 10lbs. A 5lb jump for either of us, can be the difference between 20 reps and 10 reps. The Micro Gainz plates combined with our favorite GymPin, and now we are able to load a fraction of the weight to keep progressing and slowly moving forward on a basic exercise.
This can be applied to a handful of other exercises, like cable crossovers, kickbacks, and basically anything you’d be handling well under 50lbs on. Depending on how strong you are in general, this might just be a tool you can use for EVERY cable exercise.
The GymPin itself weighs 5lbs, so you can adjust accordingly there, and then load your Micro Gainz plates as you see fit.
Loading Audrey’s Barbell
Audrey, my daughter, lifts one or two times a week. It ranges from bench press, to squats, to doing whatever me or my wife are doing. While she is a strong kiddo, she is still only a 7 year old. So a couple pounds in either direction can be the difference between a successful set, and a totally terrible one.
My daughter competes in my Garage Gym Competition using her GGC Junior Bar, which is a primary partner for the Micro Gainz Fractional Weight Plates. She also uses them whenever she is loading up her DIY Rickshaw. And we use them often as small dumbbell replacements for things like lateral raises, rear delt raises, and curls.
Overall Thoughts on Micro Gainz Fractional Weight Plates
I originally bought these because I wanted fractional plates that were black. Almost all of the other options on the market are color coordinated with competition standards. I don’t have competition plates, so I wanted ones that matched. The fact that they were significantly cheaper AND made in the USA was an added bonus. How often is something cheaper AND made in the US?
The fractional plates are something that I personally rarely use, but they get used a lot in my gym. I probably should use them more often, but I’m also a meathead sometimes and just go for the 5lb increase. But my daughter uses them EVERY single time she lifts. And they get used regularly for my wife when doing barbell lifts and on our cable machine.
If you are a big dude and solo lifter, you might be able to skip these. If you are a smaller athlete, or have one in your home gym, these are a good addition in my book.
Micro Gainz Fractional Dumbbell Plates
These are kind of an easy one. If you own dumbbells, not adjustable, but regular dumbbells, then you should buy these. I feel that confident. Whether you are a big dude or small little kid, a lot of exercises are never going to progress beyond about 50lbs in dumbbells. And those progressions are going to be VERY slow. These allow you to move the needle on a weekly basis, and improve that progress curve.
These don’t get used by my daughter currently, simply because she is mostly only using the 5lb dumbbells. But my wife uses these practically every time she touches our dumbbells. Curls, rows, lateral raises, doesn’t matter. She has a target of roughly 8 to 15 reps per set. When she hits 15 for both working sets, she moves up in weight. So if she was using a 20lb dumbbell, she is going to add one or two 2.5lb Micro Gainz Fractional Dumbbell Plates.
Overall Thoughts on Micro Gainz Fractional Dumbbell Plates
The V1 used bands. This worked, but was a pain. The newer model with the spring loaded clamp is awesome. The plates fit well, there are only a couple of considerations to make.
First, if you are a knurling diva, Micro Gainz just made a new PVC dipped version. This is to keep metal on metal contact to a minimum.
Second, if your dumbbells have these bevel inserts, it can eat up a decent chunk of the handle real estate, making the Micro Gainz Fractional Weight Plates a tight fit for bigger hands. My wife doesn’t struggle here, but I do.
Third, they have a newer design that is thinner but taller (as in, the diameter of the plate is larger). For some exercises, my wife has issues with these running into her chest. She is far from a large chested female, so keep that in mind depending on what you are packing upstairs.
Otherwise, these hold together exceptionally well, the spring after months and months of use, is still fully functional, and we have no real complaints.
Micro Gainz Magnetic Weight Plate Storage Pin
My wife and I were talking about that we needed a solution for storing our dumbbell plates. And oddly enough I said “ideally it would be some kind of post off the side of our dumbbell storage”…
Micro Gainz, the very next week, dropped this bad boy. I think he must have my phone tapped or something.
If you buy the Micro Gainz Fractional Dumbbell Plates, you are probably going to want to store them somewhere. This is probably where you should store them. Buy it!
It is strong enough to hold quite a few plates, though because we kept walking into it, we recently moved it to the bottom side of our dumbbell storage. No complaints here, this is a done deal.
Wrap Up on Micro Gainz
Micro Gainz and their list of options are one of those things you don’t need, until you do. If I didn’t have my wife and daughter lifting with me, there is a good chance I’d just BRO it out and make the bigger jumps. But having them in the gym with me, means I want to spend money to help them be successful. Having a good time doing something is part of wanting to come back, again, and again, and again.
The right equipment plays a part in that.
There isn’t a TON to say about all of the Micro Gainz equipment. I mean, they are basic in nature. So this review wasn’t exactly an in depth detailed dive into all things like normal. But here is my basic recommendation.
If you have smaller athletes in your home gym, I think these are a no brainer. If you are more like me, you can save your money until you find a need for them, like when you snag some urethane dumbbells on marketplace in 10lb increments.
đź’˛Want to snag some Micro Gainz? Use this link and code GGC10 to save 10%
Joe Gray
My name is Joe Gray - aka Gray Matter Lifting - and I've been lifting at home since 2013. In that time I've built a badass gym, deadlifted over 600lbs, helped grow r/Homegym to over 1 Million subscribers, created the Garage Gym Competition and written a ton of posts here on this site. I love the Garage Gym Community... If you do too, I hope you stick around.
