Olympic Bar for Home Use

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

Can anyone please recommend an olympic bar in the UK for homeuse garage gym? I will probably get the bumpers from strengthshop.
But I don’t know anything about quality bars.

The ones I used at a commercial gym spun nicely but were very slick to hold.

I left my old powerhouse one out the rain, so it doesn’t spin at all now. Still very sold though. It’s OK for Benches , deadlifts, rows etc.

But ideally I want a decent olympic bar and bumpers without breaking the bank.

2

Are you buying from a UK manufacturer?

Are you looking for an olympic bar or a more general purpose bar that will work for olympic lifts?

A couple suggestions, all of which you can get from Rogue (which has a Euro distribution I believe?). In order of awesomeness to low priced.

  1. The new Eleiko black training bar ($675) It has 1 less bearing per sleeve than the $900 training bar.

  2. Pendlay Bearing bar. I own this bar and its pretty good. ($550) The knurling is nice, not quite as grippy as the Eleiko (which I use in my club) but its still pretty good. No center knurling, which is a negative in my opinion.

  3. General purpose bar (a la Rogue bar) ($275?). I also own the Rogue Bar. It is a bushing bar but I spent some time and put some 3:1 oil over a couple nights in the sleeves at the suggestion of Bill Henniger and now it spins REALLY well. The knurling is good. It is 28.4mm instead of 28mm (which after you have lifted with both you CAN tell). But like I said, if you want a more general purpose bar this would be good at the price. Also has no center knurling, which annoys me, but what are you gonna do.

This bar is kind of quirky, but I actually like it a lot. The Sorinex Nickelblack bar ($330). I’ve only used this bar a couple times but its VERY grippy which I like. It is 28.5mm and bushing, so again its more for general purpose. It also has these little endcaps on that help you load the weight. It seems hokey but its actually kind of nice. Again, no center knurling, but this seems to be “the new thing”. I know Glenn Pendlay doesn’t really like the center knurling.