Rusty old barbell

[Nico Garcia]

I got a bunch of old gym equipment for 50 bucks the other day. One of the things is a 25 year old barbell. Doesn’t look like anything special. It’s was left outside all rusted. I was bored so I removed all the rust with an angle grinder and shined it up. The end sleeves still spin just fine. How can I tell if it’s worth anything? I wanna use it not sell it, but is it gonna get bent with 150kg on it? It looks pretty cool at any rate.

[Mark Rippetoe]

What brand is it?

[Nico Garcia]

What brand is it?

Doesn’t say anything on the barbell, but the plates, dumbbells and other gear was Skip Sport. I looked up the company and they were bought by Casall in 2001. The bar had a really bad chrome finish which I stripped off.

[Mark Rippetoe]

It is junk. Use it if you can.

[Nico Garcia]

It is junk. Use it if you can.

Alright, I’ll get some use out of it.

[Jason Donaldson]

Rip, for junk brands, are they candidates for use with rack pulls, since it's no loss when they bend, or will the same the cheap quality that will have them bend easily will also keep them from holding decent amounts of weight safely in the process?

I'm just curious because neither of my two bars is a crappy one that I'm in a hurry to see bent, so I block pull instead of rack pulling.

[Mark Rippetoe]

If they are already bent, they'll probably be okay to rack pull. But if you can pull from blocks and get the same work done, just keep doing that.

[Jason Donaldson]

If they are already bent, they'll probably be okay to rack pull. But if you can pull from blocks and get the same work done, just keep doing that.

Thank you, sir.