Trap Bar Carryover

If I ever stop power lifting i’d never pull from the floor ever again unless it was off a deadsquat bar.

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Trap bar is more fun because I can put on more weight and not try as hard, while also recovering more quickly. It seems to have enough carryover for my sumo or conventional deadlift to not plummet by more than 10% when I neglect them for the easier TBDL.

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From the book,

Complete Guide to Dumbbell Training: A Scientific Approach by Fred Hatfield and Josh Bryant (2014).

Does he specifically talk about thick barbells for bench pressing or is this about thick dumbbell handles?

Im a fan of James Strickland, he benched 672 raw at fairly light body weight and he was/is trained by Josh Bryant.

It’s specifically about handle size. It’s confusing. Maximum voluntary contraction was highest with thin handles, but EMG measured highest activation with the thick handle?

To make it more confusing, the study that said thick bars don’t do anything for bench (the one from the bench press book) was done 1 armed and isometricly. That’s a stupid study. To get the benefits of a strong grip/forearm in the bench press, you need both hands on the barbell to generate that good torque.

The fact that they used isometrics isn’t necessarily a bad thing, isometrics are supposed to increase force production and muscle fibre recruitment beyond that of dynamic movements. It does seem odd that the study would be done in that manner though. The single arm thing is more of a problem if anything.

Anyway, perhaps there is not sufficient evidence for either side of this argument, but if you are training for PL then you absolutely should be doing most of your benching with a regular barbell. Maybe there is no conclusive evidence against fat bar benching, but there is also none in favor of it either so you still have to ask yourself why you are doing it.

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I’ve hit my best Meet PR deadlift by consistently using the trap bar deadlift. I’ve found that if my trap-bar numbers increase, so does my regular deadlift.

My deadlift training I do Front Squats(sets of 3-5 reps), trap-bar(sets of 3-5 reps), then I deadlift. I feel deadlifting last in a pre-fatigued state and doing the front squats and trap-bar Pulls first in training better mimics actual meet conditions, because you are always tired when you get to deadlifts at the meet

I asked Josh in the youtube comments what his opinion is on fat bars, his response today:
“Fine in the off-season but somewhat overrated”

He posted Blaine Sumner’s video from IPF worlds on Instagram today and said this was his first time coaching someone to an equipped world record. Those are two of the few people I check for on Instagram and I haven’t seen either of them mention each other lately so I was under the impression that Josh was just coaching him for the offseason, I guess I was wrong about that.

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For a minute there, it seemed like every video I watched on ewe tube had a comment/question from you or Vince.

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Sounds like you watch the right videos then.