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Thread: How much can bar diameter affect difficulty?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
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    St. Louis, MO, USA
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    Default How much can bar diameter affect difficulty?

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    For the past year I've been training at a gym where almost all of the bars are 20kg (as marked) with a 1.1 inch diameter. That gym is closed for a couple of weeks, and so Im temporarily at a globogym where there are only powerbars with a grip diameter of about 1.25 inches.

    Everything I lift with these bars feels at least 10 pounds heavier than the same weight felt at my normal gym. It was less noticeable on the squat, but it immediately felt heavier on my bench warmups, and the deloaded weight I used for my worksets felt harder than it shouldve. It was so strange to me that I decided to weigh the bar on their fancy digital scale- and it came out to a hair over 48 pounds. Im willing to assume the scale is a bit off, and im sure the bars are closer to 45.

    Now I am about 5'3 with very short fingers so I understand that might make things like presses and deadlifts more difficult, but should it really add the feeling of 10+ pounds? Is it all psychological? This is by no means a major problem, just something that is really bugging me.

    Im sure you all have a lot of experience with this kind of thing and I would greatly appreciate some learnin'.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
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    Ask Oldster (log: Puttering Along). He has trained with thin bar, thick bar, and telephone poles (seriously).

  3. #3
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    Apr 2011
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    Aside from dead lift, more diameter usually helps me. And I am a girl with girl sized hands, so that probably isn't it.

  4. #4
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    I have a B&R bar (29mm) and a DHS weightlifting bar (28mm). I don't have the biggest hands so I notice the difference right away. I actually prefer benching and pressing with the B&R bar and everything else with the DHS one. I actually think the sleeve/bar rotation plays a larger role than diameter, but that's just me.

    If you're at a globo gym the bars or even the plates could be slightly off. My bumpers are precision weighed so I know when I grab a 20kg plate it weighs 20kg. The iron plates I used to own had a variance in their weight so everything was always a little off. I also don't like using equipment that isn't mine, I'm just accustomed to it so everything else feels foreign which sometimes messes with me.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mr_Rogers View Post
    I also don't like using equipment that isn't mine, I'm just accustomed to it so everything else feels foreign which sometimes messes with me.
    Im thinking this might be a major part of it.

  6. #6
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    Apr 2012
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    Charlotte, NC
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    I HATE working with thicker diameter bars. My gym only has 32mm bars - and benching with them sucks. To the point I brought in my own TPB.

    Also, keep in mind 20kg is much closer to 44lbs, so if this gym's bar actually does weight 48lbs, there is an actual 4lb difference.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
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    I've got short fingers, so I really goddamn hate thick bars for deadlifting.


    For squatting and pressing, the bars thickness doesn't seem to affect me. What does is the knurling. some of the olympic "springy" bars in my gym have such a shitty smooth knurl that they feel about as stable on your back as a one legged chair.

    There's one mystery bar at my gym though. I swear it feels lighter than the other bars, and whenever I train with it, everything seems to go brilliantly. Thing is though, as near as I can tell, it's the exact same weight as all the other bars. Same length and diameter.


    It is a Leoko (Finnish) bar, and I was looking through their catalog and I know that it is not:

    A) A womens olympic bar, because the diameter is the same as all the other bars (except for the one piece of shit thick bar). Also, all of the other olympic leoko bars at the gym are bearing bars.


    B) A junior practice bar, because it's the same length as all the other bars.


    I don't know, maybe it's just a magic bar. Or maybe it's the only good bar there, and the reason why it always works so well for me is because it's the most stable and well made. Who knows.


    We've also got a pretty badly bent bar, which is always a nice surprise when I forget to check which bar I'm using.


    (BAR BAR BAR BAR BAR, BAR.)

  8. #8
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    Jun 2012
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    Quote Originally Posted by Goatamon View Post
    (BAR BAR BAR BAR BAR, BAR.)
    Downright barbaric.

    Anyway, yeah, I pulled 365x4 slow and grindy, hook grip failed on the fifth rep, on a 32mm bar. Two days later, 375x5 easy on a Rogue Beater bar.

    Something I don't think anyone has mentioned so far is bar flex. The cheaper Rogue bars at my gym flex noticeably with 365+, thicker bars won't. Makes a big difference on DL.

  9. #9
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    Jul 2012
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    I own two bars: a 27mm womans bar and a 29mm mens. I've found with my tiny hands that pulling and cleans are far easier to control with the thinner bar, so I tend to favor it. For pressing motions I like the thicker feel of the men's bar, as it sits better on the wrist bone. If anything I wish I had a thicker bar, and in fact plan on ordering some fat gripz soon for bench / press to see if that makes things even more comfortable.

    I can say that I love doing chin ups on the 1.5" fat bar. I think the "weight" feeling has more to do with grip strength than anything else. If something feels heavy, maybe that's your body's way of telling you it's time for some Kroc rows or farmers walks. :-)

  10. #10
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    starting strength coach development program
    It's a feedback thing, when your grip is stronger the rest of you is stronger, when it's weak, the rest weak. Notice that in a heavy deadlift, typically the first thing to fail is your grip - and the moment it starts slipping from your hands your leg muscles relax. On the flipside, if you're doing a one-armed dumbbell press, if you squeeze the opposite hand into a tight fist, the press will be stronger.

    When your hands can't hold it, they tell the rest of the body to relax, and when one muscle contracts the others relax. This is why you see top lifters come up to the bar and tighten everything up, approaching the bar on the floor with arms stiff, etc.

    So if you can't get as good a grip on something, it'll be harder to lift; if you strengthen your grip, other lifts will be stronger. For example, I've had someone with a 120kg deadlift, they spent six weeks doing deadlifts with a fat grip starting from 60 and building to 80kg for 5s - and when we went back to the regular bar, they had a 135kg deadlift.

    A study was done on deadlifts, people could do 72% their normal lift with a 2" bar and 45% with a 3" bar. I'm surprised it was that high, I find the 2" deadlift is 1/2 to 2/3 the regular. I've found max chinups go from 8 to 2, or 5 to 1, so probably 1/4 normal max numbers. Farmer's walks are roughly halved in how far you can walk with a particular weight. Benching and pressing it only makes a small difference, maybe 5-10% less. Rows and cleans are much harder but I haven't tried them much. All these things, you do them for a while, come back to the regular lifts somewhat stronger.

    Take it much easier than you think you need to at first. My first chinups, I'd done sets of 8 the week before, I warmed up with a couple of sets of 5, tried the fat grip - and could do just 2. Ended up doing 5 sets of 2. My forearms were stiff and sore almost straight away. The next day I had another go, while I could still knock out 5 chinups, I could not do even a single fat grip chinup.

    I think fat grips or a thick bar are not only a good way to build your grip strength and thus the strength of other lifts, they're also a good way to build overall strength if for some reason you can't lift as heavy as normal, like while rehabbing an injury. Anyone you massage will appreciate the difference.

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