Standards
What the markings actually record
Nearly everything on this shelf carries a number, and almost all of them are read as promises. They are not. A load rating records what a maker put in writing; a bore standard fixes a diameter and nothing else; a foam density describes a material, not a comfort; an equipment test standard records what a sample survived on a rig. Each is precise, each is real, and none of them is a statement about what will happen under your own bar. Some are published documents; several things this trade calls standards are conventions with no publisher at all, and the difference matters when something does not fit. Each page says which it is, in four parts — what the document or the convention fixes, what it does not promise, what it works with, and which families on this site rely on it.
Load and safety ratings
What a published kilogram figure covers, and the difference between a static rating, a dynamic rating and a marketing maximum.
Bore and thread standards
The three sleeve diameters, the spin-lock thread, and the designations German listings use for each.
Material and density
Shore hardness, kg/m³, denier and cell structure — the material figures that predict behaviour, and how rarely they are published.
Equipment test standards
The European standards that do apply to training equipment, what they test, and which classes exist.
Market conventions
Resistance in kilograms, band colour codes, gripper closing forces: widely used, universally understood, and standardised by nobody.