Whether you’re a bodybuilder, CrossFitter, weightlifter or powerlifter: the barbell is your most important piece of training equipment. The main basic exercises – from the bench press to the squat, the power clean to the deadlift – are all performed with a barbell. It’s the last thing you want to cut back on.

MATERIAL AND DIMENSIONS

The best barbell bars are Olympic barbell bars, made of spring steel, with or without a chrome or zinc coating. There are also bars made of bare steel with a black oxide finish. This matte finish is created by exposure of the steel to the air.

An Olympic barbell has a standard length of 220 cm and standard weight of 20 kg, with minimal room for tolerance (several tenths of a percent to a maximum of one percent).

The bar consists of the sleeves, collars and shaft from the outside in. The sleeves are the outer parts of the rod, for the disc take-up. The grip part of the bar is called the shaft and is 131 cm long. The sleeves and the shaft are separated from each other by thick collars, which together with the closures keep the weight plates in place.

SLEEVE DIAMETER

The diameter of the sleeves of an Olympic barbell is standard 50 mm, which sets the bars apart from the cheaper and inferior 30 mm barbells, which are only suitable for general fitness purposes; not for strength sports. Sleeves are standard 41.5 cm long and 5 cm thick.

There are also 50mm bars with a length shorter than the standard 220 cm. Handy if you train in a small space. But these are not real Olympic barbells.

Olympic barbells, unlike 30 mm bars, are always bearings and have rotating sleeves, for a smooth and safe performance of various exercises. Needle bearings provide the smoothest rotation. A must when lifting weights. Brass bushings (bushes) are sufficient for a powerlift bar or power bar. Cheaper rods are often mounted with ball bearings.

SHAFT DIAMETER

The diameter of the shaft of an Olympic barbell is 28 mm as standard, but there are also barbell bars with a diameter of 28.5 or 29 mm. A thinner rod is more resilient and a thicker one stiffer. The small differences in thickness and stiffness make the bars suitable for specific applications, such as deadlifting, which requires a flexible bar.

MARKINGS AND KNURLING

Olympic barbells have different markings for powerlifting and/or Olympic weightlifting. The rings are respectively 81 and 91 centimeters apart. From these markings, among other things, you can deduce for which purpose a certain bar is most suitable.

What a bar is for, you can also deduce from the knurling: the rough, ribbed part of the bar, intended to give you more grip. Weightlifting barbells have a finer knurling than a powerlifting bar, where the deadlift section calls for a rougher knurling for extra grip.

A typical weightlifting bar does not have a center knurl, a ribbed portion in the middle, for better grip when performing squats. Weightlifters, at least in the competition parts, do not need a center knurl, because this part makes contact with the body.

There are also special sumo deadlift bars, which feature a reverse knurling, with an extra wide center knurl and smooth outer section, to spare the shins.

LOAD CAPACITY

A good Olympic barbell can be heavily loaded. However, the maximum load capacity is not absolute, but depends on the exercise. In fact, the narrower the handle, the lower the load capacity. For example, with the wide grip of the snatch (pull), one of the two parts in Olympic weightlifting, the bar can be loaded to the maximum. With the squat there is point load and the bar is minimally loadable.

PURCHASE

If you are going to buy a barbell for your home gym, you should first ask yourself what you are going to use the bar for. If you are going to use the bar mainly for heavy squats, bench presses and deadlifts, it is best to buy a real power bar.

Are you a weightlifter or CrossFitter and are you going to do a lot of explosive exercises, such as the (power) snatch, power clean and clean and jerk? Then choose a rod with needle bearings.

There are also ‘hybrid’ bars that are suitable for powerlifting as well as Olympic weightlifting and CrossFit. Of course, if your budget allows, you can also buy two bars – one for the powerlifts and one for weightlifting.

The price of a decent Olympic barbell is around 200 euros. But rods from the premium brands Eleiko and Ivanko cost around a thousand euros. The American Rogue also has bars that approach this price, but also has much cheaper bars. As far as we are concerned, the bars of the ATX brand are unbeatable in terms of price-quality ratio. If you are looking for a cheaper bar of a reasonable quality, the IronSports and Kroon brands offer the solution.

Never buy a barbell that you have not held in your hands. Well, that gets tricky when you order your rod overseas. But preferably go to the showroom of an online store to learn how a rod feels. This mainly concerns the thickness and the type of knurling.

SPECIALTY BARS

In addition to the ‘standard’ Olympic barbell, there are also numerous specialty bars for specific applications. A multi-grip bar , for handling various (semi-)parallel grips. A hex bar , or trap bar, for doing shrugs and trap bar deadlifts. A safety squat bar , for a safer performance of squats. A cambered bar , with a curvature, for increased range of motion and/or shifting the center of gravity for certain exercises. And finally a fat bar , with an extra thick grip to train your grip strength. These are just about the most famous specialty bars.

MAINTENANCE

A good barbell, if properly cleaned and maintained, will last a lifetime. Regularly clean the knurling with a nylon (not steel) brush. Coated rods require little maintenance. Rods with a black oxide finish, on the other hand, must be cleaned regularly and lubricated with a special 3-in-1 oil. You can also use it to lubricate the sleeves. Most rods have self-lubricating bearings, but these also need to be lubricated every now and then.

Target price barbell: € 100