New Video: Tricks of the Trade

[Mark Rippetoe]

About our favorite topic: Barbells

http://startingstrength.com/index.ph...r_bar_straight

[the big chill]

Excellent video. I work at Sports Authority and we have a couple of extra barbells laying around that my manager will sell to me for $7. Its kind of hard to beat that price for a brand new barbell.

Rip, do you have any tips for proper cleaning of the barbell? I have a lot of chalk build up in the knurling and its started to smooth out. Probably wouldn't hurt to clean the bar every so often, either.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Brush the knurl out with a wire brush. That is all.

[ESRevenge]

Excellent video thanks for making it - those were some really great tips and great comments about barbells in general.

[MikeC1]

Very nice video Rip. I have a question. I'd like to buy a bar for my parents so that they'll be able to lift in the convenience of their home. My poor mother can press about 30-35 lbs, and not more, and I feel it's very important for her to be able to train the press to help strengthen her nagging arthritic shoulder. My father likes the deadlift and is lifting around 200 lbs. So, I'd like to buy the B&R women's bar for them. Are there any special considerations that should be made when buying a women's bar, and does that sound like a good use of $300? I want the best for my parents.

[Mark Rippetoe]

The B&R women's bar won't work for either one of them. She can't warm up with it, and he'll bend it squatting and pulling. You'll have to find a lighter bar for her, and he'll need a 20kg bar.

[MikeC1]

Thanks Rip, I'll keep looking.

[kwerk]

Coach, is there a way to tell the shape of the bearings by inspection, whether they're done for or just need a good oiling?

Also, what's the purpose of coating a bar? I saw a black coated bar at the local sporting goods store and it was more expensive, but is there a reason some people want it?

[OCG]

Good video Rip. That said, a couple of things; One, all steel is hot rolled. Unless you've got some sort of one off crucible made wonder steel or some incredibly shitty pot metal on your hands, the steel has been hot rolled and homogenised. Even crappy Chinese steel is hot rolled. This is very much a good thing, hot rolling does wonders for the quality of steel. Hot rolling is not heat treatment however, and whilst I am not sure, I am fairly sure a good barbell would be heat treated and a crappy one would not. There is also quite possibly some other stuff going on with steel composition and QC etc.

Secondly, and far less importantly the difference between red rust (Iron III Oxide) and black rust (Iron II Oxide) is simply that red rust is formed via exposure to air and water, whilst black rust needs some sort of acid usually.

Speaking of quality control, that letter you got from the Eliko rep strikes me as quite odd. Anyone in, well, pretty much any branch of manufacturing can tell you that QC is not and will never be perfect, not to mention the processes themselves. You can get really really good QC that is pretty close, but you'll still get the occasional lemons.

[r3volver]

Dumb question: is an olympic platform to protect the floor or the equipment? My home gym is a converted garage stall with 1/4" rubber laid over concrete without a platform. It looks similar to what the benches are sitting on in the video. I have an inexpensive bushing barbell and set of bumpers that I want to last, and I've been dropping my power cleans in the manner described in the book. But it still hits the ground hard and I always feel like it can't be good for the bushing.