I read somewhere recently that when performing deadlifts, you should use a proper olympic barbell and plates, so that the bar is the appropriate height off the ground. Apparently if the bar is any lower than that, it puts excessive stress on your back.I don't have an olympic barbell, and didn't want to spend >£100 on a new set of weights when the set I have is otherwise perfectly fine.
As you can see from the photo, I decided to instead to make a couple of riser blocks to raise my barbell to the appropriate height.Weight plates for Olympic bars are 450mm in diameter, apparently, meaning the centre of an Olympic bar will be half that, 225mm, off the ground. My barbell set, on the other hand, has weight plates that are 310mm diameter (155mm radius), which is a difference in radii of 70mm. I therefore needed to make my riser blocks 70mm in height.
I did this with some spare timber I had, an old fence post and some plywood sheet. I used an off-cut of my turbo trainer foam mat to add a bit of cushioning on top. So it was all done without having to buy any new materials, and it took only about an hour to build.
