i just switched to a new gym and it has a swiss bar and fat bar.
Does anybody here use either of these? Is the fat bar better for floor pressing?
If you have elbow pain/issues you will like using a fat bar. I use a fat bar for all warm up sets for bench, OHP and floor pressing. Sometimes even use for cleans and snatches.
[quote]budreiser wrote:
i just switched to a new gym and it has a swiss bar and fat bar.
Does anybody here use either of these? Is the fat bar better for floor pressing?[/quote]
I own a swiss bar and a fat bar. The fat bar to me is really no different than pressing with a regular bar. Doing shit like deads with it and other pulling stuff like rows, one obviously gets the fat grip effect in terms of grip work but pressing I see no difference. Your mileage may vary.
The swiss bar is cool and I love that bar. I got 3 different grips widths. Some say this bar is easier on the shoulders than a straight bar. I find it to be the opposite. I have a rebuilt left shoulder so trust me when I say that I’m in tune with the way things affect it. I attribute this to not being able to as easily adjust my elbow angle to make things better for me. The difference is not enough for me to worry about so don’t let this dissuade you from using it.
I floor press quite a bit. I can do more with a straight bar so I use the swiss bar more often because It’s a sign of weakness right? Love some swiss bar floor presses with chains.
You’ll find this out if you haven’t already. If your wrists aren’t in the center of the grip the bar will cant to the uneven / heavy side. The first few times you use it your wrists will rock forwards and back due to the the wrist stabilizers not being used to this. This ‘wiggle’ may affect your poundage at first but you’ll get used to it.
The only way I can press overhead, without using the swiss bar, is with the fat. I use the extra big fatgripz on the swiss and the regular bar.
They’re just another tool in the box. Use 'em, but don’t live by 'em. I use my swiss bar for ME days every few months. Lately it just gets used on top of my power rack for multi-grip pull ups. If you have grip problems, use the fat bar for pulling.
yeah i’ll play around with them tomorrow. I really do like how the fat bar felt on overhead work, so hopefully it will be the same for benching/floor pressing
I never thought of using the swiss bar for neutral grip chins, I always just used my homemade rings but that’s a pain because my knees almost touch the ground so I’ll try the swiss bar tomorrow.
My swiss bar to straight bar work for the OHP is about 2-1 b/c my that’s all my shoulders can take of the straight bar.
I love having a swiss bar in my home gym - any time I have a pressing (bench or OHP) exercise in my training split and my shoulders aren’t feeling great, I use the swiss. I think if you have the room/money for one, and you have any shoulder issues, it’s an invaluable tool.
I also have a fat bar, and I usually only use it for light/dynamic deadlifts and some rows etc. Mine’s homemade, not sure I get enough use out of it to justify buying a real, pre-made one (you can make 1 from 1-3/4" pipe from Home Depot). Mine cost $30 and I defintely got $30 use out of it, but I wouldn’t shell out for a real one.
I like using fatgripz for making any bar a fat, I train at work a lot, and I wish I got the extreme red ones instead.
I couldn’t imagine using the extreme version, saw the email for those! Originally I bought mine for grip, but now I use them for comfort on pressing more so. When I did train with an axel bar though, my forearms blew up doing cleans!
I went and ordered the fat gripz extreme, it isn’t like I’m not going to use them constantly. I tried using the swiss bar for chins and it worked out great. I have to be careful the bar doesn’t roll but outside of that the thickness of the bar plus the width of the top of the rack make it so that I can realistically touch my chest to the bar on more than half of the reps.