The Leoko bar is an absolutely AMAZING all round bar.
Hanley - I’ve never really done that muck work with Leoko bars. What’s the difference from Leoko to Eleiko?
[quote]W.E.C wrote:
My thoughts on that can be found here:
That’s a great post. Now what we need is a thread that lists the best few brands of each type of bar, and how much a person should expect to pay for them. (I’ll start a thread on that now…)
FYI, I asked a similar question to the OP a while back and got some very different responses. That discussion can be found here:
Forums - T Nation - The World's Trusted Community for Elite Fitness
[quote]jonatan-shg wrote:
Hanley - I’ve never really done that muck work with Leoko bars. What’s the difference from Leoko to Eleiko?[/quote]
Never used an Eleiko so can’t say.
Haven’t lifted on a fair few Ivanko’s and found them hit and miss. Some I liked, some were WAY too whippy.
I just got my Jesup bar in the mail the other day. It took me a while to decide what I wanted to do, but I decided to get this bar for bench and squats. The knurling is really deep and sharp and it has no bolts on the end to come loose like the crappy bars I was using from those 300lbs weight sets. For the weights I am moving (up to about 600lbs at the most) this bar will be perfect. I am also not bothered by the larger diameter since I have used thicker bars like this is meets before. Both the Texas Squat Bar and Mastodon have a thicker diameter than a normal bar.
Overall I love this bar and I just plan on using one of my old bars from the 300lbs set when doing pin pulls as those could wreck any good bar and you should use a crappy bar for them anyway.
Overall, I don’t think you will be disappointed no matter which bar you pick. Either one are light years ahead of crappy gym bars.
I got the Jesup bar years ago and loved it, even though it tore up my palms for a while. I sold it when I moved and joined a gym, but I have the space for a home set up again and will be getting another Jesup bar.
The extra thickness is actually a boon. In the two USAPL meets in which I’ve competed, the bar used for the deadlift was thinner and had more give. Made the deadlift much easier than I was used to with the thick, stiff Jesup bar.
The Jesup bar makes the deadlift a little bit harder so getting used to it will actually make use of the meet bar easier. Grip won’t be a problem and the give will allow you to develop some momentum.
I just missed a huge PR at my last meet because I was so shocked that the thin, whippy bar allowed me to get that much weight moving so easily. If I’d been more confident and tried to develop more speed off the floor, I would have had the momentum needed to lock out my hips. Got the bar all the way but just couldn’t push my hips through and lost my balance.