8 Best Weight Plate Exercises

Today I'm going to share with you 8 of the best weight plate exercises that you can do anywhere! It's important you know that you DON'T need to use a 45lb plate for all of these exercises, and after I have explained how to do each exercise, I will show you how to incorporate all 8 exercises into a brutal, home, full body workout!

Exercise #1: Plate Press

This is going to mainly target the chest, but you will feel it in your arms and shoulders as well. The way you perform this movement is very simple – you'll place your hands on the outside of the plate and push your hands in. Pushing your hands in is going to force you to take advantage of the flex at the top of the movement, and it will help you keep your arms in an adducted position to hold onto the plate.

You'll start at the top of the movement with your arms extended, and lower the plate down controlled to your chest. While pushing your hands together on the plate, press the plate back to the top of the movement, and repeat for reps. Personally, I do like to superset this exercise with push-ups, so if you want to make the chest portion of this workout a bit more intense, you can do your reps with the plate press, and then roll over and go into some push-ups as well.

Exercise #2: Single-Arm Plate Row

All you need to do for this exercise is find a bench or a chair to post off of with one hand, and place your fingers through the middle of the plate. Once you're in position, you're going to pull through your elbow as high as you can, before returning to the starting position and repeating for reps. Obviously once you finish one side, you need to make sure you switch hands and repeat the same number of repetitions on the other side.

Exercise #3: Plate Curl

To do this movement, you're going to grab the plate on both sides, while keeping your elbows slightly elevated and in front on your hips. From this position, you're going to curl the weight up, flexing and squeezing your biceps as hard as you can before returning to the starting position, and repeating for reps. You don't want to go all the way down to the point where your elbows move backwards with this movement. Always keep them in front of your hips to keep constant tension on the biceps as you perform your repetitions. If you want to make this exercise more intense, you can always use more weight by using multiple plates and performing the movement the exact same way.

Exercise #4: Plate Triceps Extension

For this exercise, you want to grab the plate the same way you did for your biceps, except this time you're going to bring your arms up and over your head. Once you're in the starting position with your arms fully extended, you're going to lower the weight behind you all the way down, before extending back to the top. Make sure you are flexing and squeezing your triceps as hard as you can at the top of the movement. Again, if you want to make this more intense, take another plate, stack it up, and perform the same range of motion.

Exercise #5: Overhead Plate Squat

For this movement, you're going to take the plate and hold it over your head the same way you would for the triceps extension. Once you have the plate in that top position, you're going to squat down as low as you can, then return back to the starting position and repeat for reps. Even though you're working your legs, you're still getting a lot of upper body engagement as well because you're holding the plate.

If it starts to get too heavy and it starts affecting your form, it's OK to hold the plate in front of you instead, and perform your squats more like a goblet squat. Again, if you want to make the exercise more intense, just stack two plates together and hold them in the same position.

Exercise #6: Plate Crunch

The way you're going to perform this movement is by getting down on the floor in the crunch position, while holding the plate over your head. As you crunch, you're going to continue to extend your arms up and over your head. As soon as you get to the top of the movement, control the negative on the way back down and make sure your lower back hits the ground first. Before you do your second crunch, make sure your shoulder blades hit the ground as well.

Exercise #7: Bus Driver

Back to the upper body now and with this exercise you're going to be targeting your shoulders. To do this exercise correctly, you have to make sure that your arms are straight and parallel to the floor. Bringing them down even slightly lower can really affect how you target your shoulders, and you want to utilize this movement to hit all three heads of the deltoids. In order to maximize that, you HAVE to keep your arms parallel. Once in the starting position, you're simply going to turn the plate back and forth, going as far to the left and as far to the right as you can, until you complete all of your repetitions.

Exercise #8: Plate Plank (1 Minute Hold)

Before I explain how to do this movement with a plate on your back, let me first explain proper form. When doing this movement, it's more than just going on your toes and your elbows and holding that position. When you're in that position, you should almost be pulling your toes in, pulling your elbows towards your toes, and flexing your core as hard as you can at the same time. That's how you maximize the plank, because sitting in that position while loose isn't really doing anything for you.

To make the exercise more intense, all you have to do is grab a plate, toss it on your lower back, then get into the same position by going through the same cues. Bring the toes to the elbows, the elbows to the toes, squeeze the core as hard as you can, then hold the position for a certain amount of time.

Brutal Home Full Body Workout

As promised, it's time to take those exercises and turn them into a brutal workout that you can do anywhere. What you're going to do is take all 8 of these exercises, and complete 3-5 rounds of 15-20 reps per exercise. This means you are going to do each exercise one after another – as soon as you finish 15-20 reps of the first exercise, you move onto the next exercise as quickly as possible, taking no longer than 30 seconds rest between exercises. Once you have completed 1 round, you can rest for1 minute before your next round.

Remember that for something like the single-arm plate row, you have to do 15-20 reps PER SIDE, and with something like the plank, there are no reps, you're just going to put as much weight as you can on your back and hold it for 1 minute (or longer if you can). One last thing is that some of you may not be able to use any weight with some movements such as the squats or planks. In this case, you can just use your bodyweight, there is nothing wrong with modifying some exercises to fit your needs. Try to use weights as much as possible, but if you start to get tired, start to fatigue or you simply can't handle it yet, it's OK to just use your bodyweight.

Conclusion

An intense full body workout doesn't have to be complicated, and you don't need access to a range of machines either. One plate is all you need to complete an extremely effective workout, which after your 5^th round will leave you sore for days!