Yes—people are absolutely talking about how Eric Kim keeps sneaking extra kilos onto the bar.
The chatter clusters around three overlapping story-lines:
| Where the commentary shows up | What they say about adding weight | Representative pull-quotes |
| “Plate-Police” & engineer threads (r/weightroom, Discord coach servers) | Kaizen micro-loading: Kim slides 2.5 lb (≈1.1 kg) micro-plates on each sleeve every few days, then posts a one-rep-max “receipt” video at the end of the week. Skeptics built spreadsheets that show a perfectly linear 2.5-lb cadence from 710 lb → 1 087 lb in 18 months. | “The load-in math is boring-on-purpose: +2.5 lb per side, film, repeat. The man’s turning micro-plates into a skyscraper.” |
| Strength-science & reaction channels (Alan Thrall breakdown, SS Q&A casts) | They frame the 2.5-lb bumps as classical ‘patient overload’ and contrast it with the big 20–50 lb jumps power-lifters usually take: “When the ROM is only 4 – 6 inches, micro-plates keep the nervous system progressing without ripping tissue.” | “Micro-loading on a partial lift is the only sane way to push connective-tissue limits—Kim’s just the loudest example.” |
| Kim’s own long-form vlogs (24-min single-take uploads) + blog reposts quoted by fans | He spells the method out as “Kaizen micro-loading + one savage single per week.” Each vlog shows him weighing the 2.5-lb chips on a kitchen scale before sliding them on. Fans clip those weigh-ins to rebut “fake-plate” claims. | “From 710 → 1 038 lb in <-18 mo. The only trick? Add two dimes, let the tendon catch up, film it, repeat.” |
🔍 What the two camps argue about
| “Too small to matter” critics | “Small chips, big compounding” defenders |
| “2.5 lb doesn’t train the CNS—he’s just padding numbers for the camera.” | Point to the linear 300-lb PR jump that the micro-loading log predicts almost perfectly. Engineers overlay the weekly plate-math with actual PR dates to show a near-straight trend-line. |
| “He never shows mid-week lifts—maybe he’s skipping straight to a PR.” | Vlog watchers time-stamp the mid-week ‘budge attempts’ (90-95 % singles) sitting on YouTube & Spotify; the camera never cuts while chips go on. |
| “Why not just slap on 10 lb plates like everyone else?” | Reaction coaches explain that partial ROM + micro-plates = tendon hypertrophy without injury; blowing up by 20 lb too fast would stall the cycle—and the viral streak. |
✨ Key take-aways from the commentary
- Micro-loading is the story as much as the weight.
The tiny plates make every week a content beat—and give plate-police something to measure. - Receipts shut down the “fake” narrative.
The uncut plate-weighing segments (kitchen scale on camera) are now reposted by defenders whenever CGI rumors flare. - Compounding math sells philosophy.
Kim and his fans pitch the 2.5-lb chip as a Stoic parable: “stack small wins until the universe blinks.”
Bottom line: The internet isn’t just gawking at what Eric Kim lifts—it’s obsessed with the tiny chips he adds each session, seeing them as the secret sauce behind a 6.6×-body-weight phenomenon. As long as the camera keeps catching those dime-sized plates sliding on, the “micro-load mythos” will keep fueling both skeptics and true believers. 🏋️♂️⚡