Bar Talk

This is a review for the Ohio Deadlift Bar from Rogue Fitness – an extra long, highly elastic power bar designed exclusively for heavy deadlifts. A bar that I think the majority of you will agree rivals both the Okie Deadlift Bar and Texas Deadlift Bar not only in specifications, but also in price. Updated January 2018 – checked [...]

The new Eleiko Power Lock Bar is a unique and rather interesting take on the classic Eleiko Training Bar. Matter of fact, the Power Lock is really just a variant of the Eleiko Training Bar. They share all the same hardware, same specifications, and high level of performance; only the new Power Lock has deep grooves cut into [...]

About a year ago, Rogue Fitness released the Ohio Power Bar; a bar that would completely replace the old Rogue Power Bar; Rogue’s only self-branded powerlifting bar. With only two unique power bars being sold by Rogue at the time (Rogue Power & Westside Power), and both of them having all-too-similar specifications, the addition of the Ohio Power was much [...]

This is a review of the infamous CAP OB-86B Olympic bar. The OB-86B is a fairly popular, lower-end import barbell sold at sporting good stores, online fitness outlets, and of course; Amazon. This bar retails for around $150-$160, and it’s the least expensive bar currently reviewed on this site. It’s no secret; I am no fan of the imported [...]

This is a review for the Super Power Bar, a high tensile strength, stainless steel power bar manufactured by American Barbell. Update: the AB Super Power Bar reviewed here no longer exists as a product. It has been replaced by the new Mammoth Power Bar. First I’d like to say that I hope a power bar will be [...]

One of the most common garage-gym based strength training programs is Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength; an easy to follow, incredibly effective, linear training program that focuses solely on compound barbell movements like the squat, bench, and deadlift. Starting Strength (SS) is popular not only because it is super easy to follow and offers near instant strength [...]

This is the much-anticipated review of the Rogue Euro Olympic Bar. First let me apologize to those of you who been patiently waiting to read this review. I feel pretty bad about having announced the Euro and XF review a couple months ago only to not get them completed in a timely manner. I won’t get too into it, but suffice it [...]

In the last couple months I’ve been asked about the American Barbell Stainless Steel WOD Bar more that I’ve been asked about any other bar. Why? Simply because the price for this bar is just stupid low. Stainless steel bars are never sold for $299, and people want to know whether this bar is legit or not. Truth be [...]

There’s a growing variety of specialized strength training bars on the market to supplement your workouts with. Maybe you’ve already seen some weird looking bar at one of the gyms and wondered what it was called, what it was for, or where you could get one. I’m going to give you a brief tour of [...]

Welcome to the Women’s Olympic Barbell Guide. This article is more or less an extension of my original Barbell Guide, only the focus here is on women’s 15 kg bars instead of what is mostly men’s 20 kg bars in the original. The original guide has a very thorough opening section that explains the basics of barbell [...]

The Vulcan Elite is a 28 mm bushing bar designed specifically for Olympic weightlifting. It is the more affordable “training” version of the $600 Vulcan Professional Bearing Bar, with the biggest differences being the use of bushings instead of bearings, and of course, the price. In terms of classification, the Vulcan Elite 3 is much [...]

This is a review for the newest adaptation of the Again Faster Team Bar, the new 2.0. Just a heads up, I have no hands-on experience with the previous Team Bars, so there won’t be any comparisons between the original bar or version 1.2. Just consider this a stand alone review for the 2.0. Update 2016-2017: I highly recommend avoiding this [...]

This is a review for what is now the fourth Vulcan bar that I’ll review here at Garage Gyms; the Vulcan Standard 28.5 mm Olympic Bar; or what I think of as the Box Bar. Previously I reviewed the Vulcan Elite, the One Basic, and the Bearing Training Bar, and I think that it’s safe to say [...]

This is a review for the Vulcan 28.5 mm Training Bearing Bar – which is practically identical to the previous Vulcan bar that I reviewed, the Vulcan One. The primary difference between these two bars is that the Vulcan One Basic is a bushing bar, and the 28.5 mm Training Bar is a needle bearing bar. I strongly [...]