What’s the advantage, really. I really don’t see much point in picking the 2" diameter bar over a 1" diameter bar. Can someone help me on this? This might be a stupid question to some of you, but I’m very new at this.
Um, okay, I’ll bite. Olympic bars have a number of advantages. First, they are designed for use with olympic plates, and are standard in any gym. Second, they can take a real nice bend when loaded with 405 and up, and return to true. You can’t do that with a standard bar. Finally, they are preset at 45 lbs, so you don’t have to worry about the damn thing teeter-tottering across the room when you unload it, unless you do something really dumb like unload one side at a time and leave more than two plates on the opposite end. Anyone else?
i guess the main advantage of the olympic bar is the sleeves that rotate.the weight plates do not rotate when you lift,for the most part.also,alot of equipment is designed to be used with the olympic bars ie:benches,racks etc.
I might be wrong, but I have noticed a difference in the two. The olympic bars have a moving end to them. That is, when the weights are loaded to each side, you see how the ‘endpart’ of the bar rotates? As for a standard bar, the ends don’t move. They don’t rotate. This makes it harder to lift more weight. It’s based on physics, when you have bar moving while spinning/rotating, etc. So i think that is the difference.
Monkey bars are great for tiny hands. Or prehensile tails.
Major thanks people. I know you guys’ll wack me with an iron pipe for asking about supplements before diet, but I’m taking care of that. I’ve heard that glutamine should not be taken by people under 18(or something like that). Any thoughts? I’m also curious since Biotest Surge has some glutamine in it. Thanks again!
There was an article on glutamine recently. How old are you?
Hi. i am new on the board…well regarding the bar.A friend of mine who recently started using the slightly shorter olympic bars for curls found that his stabilisers felt stronger and also they build up some strenght on your gripping…well the best is to play around and see what works.
Try this – take a standard bar, put a moderate load on it, then take it overhead. Hard to control, ain’t it? Why so? Well, in order to take the bar overhead, you have to rotate it. With standard bars, that means the plates rotate as well, making for a lot of rotational momentum wanting to take you over when you try to stop the movement. Olympic bars take this momentum out of the picture by letting the bar rotate while the plates don’t. Can’t imagine trying to take a couple hundred pounds overhead and try to stop that rotationsal momentum. Scary thought…
That article was really informative, didn’t really help me with the age thing, though. I’m turning 16 in 3 months, by the way.
Advantages of the olympic bar over the standard bar:
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Rotating sleeve (has already been explained in earlier posts)
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Bigger diameter = stronger grip development
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An olympic bar wont get bent over time
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If you ever decide to buy some bumper plates for olympic lifts, you need an olympic bar, they wont fit on a standard bar.
can you repeat the explanation to reason 1. I can’t seem to find it in the search. - Thanks