All the Different Bars at the Gym, Explained
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Before you can lift a loaded barbell, you have to find a bar and load some plates onto it. At some gyms, there’s only one type of bar, and it weighs 45 pounds, and that’s all you need to know. But that’s not the only type out there, and if your gym has different bars of different shapes and weights, it’s possible to get confused.
Check end of the bar first
If you’re wondering about what kind of bar you're looking at or what it weighs, always check the end of it. Sometimes you’ll find a label with a brand name, a description of what the bar is, and its weight. For example, this one has a little endcap that says “The Rogue Ohio Deadlift Bar. 27mm. 20kg.” Now you know that it weighs 44 pounds (20kg) and that it’s got a 27mm wide handle, just over an inch, which is slightly thinner than a typical power bar. Great! Problem solved.
But on many bars, all you’ll see at the end is a rusty bolt, so we need to look for other clues. If the bar is seven feet long, it probably weighs 44 or 45 pounds. (How to know if it's seven feet long? Stand it on end, and compare to your own height. If you're six feet tall and it's about a foot taller, that's the kind I'm thinking of.)
If you’re suspicious, though, trust no one. I’ve heard bystanders say “oh yeah, that one’s 55 pounds” for everything from a standard 45-pound bar to a monster of a 69-pound trap bar. There’s a simple way to find out how much any bar weighs: weigh it. Almost every gym has a bathroom scale kicking around somewhere, so you can weigh yourself holding the barbell, and then weigh yourself without it and subtract your own weight. (Ask the front desk staff for help if carrying it around to weigh it would be awkward. They may either know the weight, or may be able to help you wrangle it onto a scale.)
That said, these are the most common bars you’re likely to encounter:
Standard 44- and 45-pound bars
There are a few different kinds of bars in the 45-pound family, but I’m lumping them together because they are about the same size and weight, and can be used interchangeably for many lifts. Some are 44 pounds (because that's 20 kilograms, and 20-kilogram bars are standard in international competition), and some are 45 pounds (which are basically the same thing, but more American). Honestly: don’t worry about the difference. A 20 kilo bar loaded with two 45-pound plates is technically 134 pounds, but everybody in the gym will say it's 135 and you might as well go along with it.
These 45(ish) pound bars are the most common ones you'll see in the gym. They are seven feet long, with the part you hold about an inch in diameter and the parts where the weight plates go about two inches in diameter. This type is sometimes called an "Olympic" bar to distinguish it from the "standard" bars that used to be common, and which you can still buy as home gym equipment. (Ironically, "standard" bars with their one-inch sleeves are no longer standard. But the name has stuck.)
Within this category, there are a few different types of 44- and 45-pound bars:
Men’s Olympic bars are 20kg (about 44 pounds) for the men’s bar, and 7.2 feet long. The sleeves (the wider parts on the ends) spin easily. If you load them up with plenty of weight, you will see that they tend to flex or bounce easily. These are designed with the two Olympic lifts in mind, the snatch and the clean and jerk. But you can use them for any lift you like, so you’ll still find them at gyms where nobody does any Olympic lifts.
Power bars, used for squat, bench, deadlift, and the like, are the same size and shape as men’s Olympic bars. They tend to be stiffer (thus not bending or bouncing as much when they're loaded heavy) and the collars will probably not spin as easily. If they’re not 44 pounds, they’ll be 45.
Deadlift bars may be a bit longer than a typical power bar, and may be thinner and more whippy. They are usually still 45 pounds.
Squat bars are a wild card here. Normally, the bar in a squat rack will be a regular power bar. But sometimes, it will be a specialized squat bar that is thicker and stiffer, and that may weigh 50 pounds, or sometimes 55 or more.
Women’s Olympic bars
Women’s bars are lighter and slightly thinner than men’s Olympic bars, but they are also noticeably shorter—about eight inches shorter. They weigh 15kg, or 33 pounds.
Women’s Olympic bars exist for women to use when competing in the snatch and clean and jerk. They have two main advantages over a men’s bar (if you are an average sized woman):
They are thinner, making them easier to grip, especially with the hook grip that Oly lifters typically use.
They are “whippier,” so that the bar doesn’t require quite as much weight on it for it to be able to flex and bounce. This matters in Olympic lifting (for example, when you use the bounce to help you as you’re standing up from a clean) and means basically nothing for other lifts.
Because they’re specialized for Olympic lifting, you’re only likely to see these bars in Olympic weightlifting gyms and in Crossfit gyms (and similar "functional fitness" spaces). You're not too likely to see these bars in your average commercial gym.
In weightlifting and Crossfit gyms, you may also find lighter "technique bars" or "training bars" (often 5kg or 10kg, so 11 or 22 pounds) that exist to give you something lighter to work with if you’re not ready for a full size bar. They are usually the same dimensions as a women's Olympic bar, and are used by kids and beginners learning the lifts. Again, you're not likely to see these outside of an Olympic weightlifting gym, but you never know. They'll be clearly marked on the endcap, and usually shouldn't be loaded past about 50 pounds total.
Curl bars and shorty bars
All of the bars I discussed above are what you might call "full size" barbells. But there are also shorter bars meant for lighter lifts, often four or five feet long. They might be called a "shorty" bar, or just a "5 foot bar" or maybe, in a nod to one of their common uses, a "curl bar." (But not an EZ-curl bar, which I'll discuss in the next section.)
These shorter bars are used for exercises like barbell curls where you aren't going to be using a ton of weight, so you don't need a full size barbell. A five-foot bar is a lot easier to manage, especially if you're carrying it around a crowded gym or storing it in a small space in your home gym. That said, I wouldn't buy a shorty as your only bar for a home gym, since they don't fit in standard squat racks, and don't have enough room on the sleeves to load much weight. Curl bars are often, but not always, 25 pounds. Check for a label or weigh one to be sure.
EZ-curl bars
These are the wiggly ones. They’re used like curl bars, for exercises that use smallish amounts of weight. Their handles are designed so that you can choose the position that’s most comfortable for your wrists. They may be 25 pounds or less; this one is 15 pounds.
Trap bars and other oddly shaped things
There are a variety of other bars out there, in odd shapes and varying weights. One is the trap bar or hex bar, a hexagon big enough that you stand inside of it. (It’s mainly used for trap bar deadlifts, where your hands are at your sides and you don’t have to worry about whether you’re going to smack the bar into your shins.) Some trap bars are 45 pounds, but some are more and some are less.
There are also football bars, also called Swiss bars or multi-grip bars, that allow you to use a neutral grip for bench press or other pressing movements. Sometimes they’re 45 pounds, but again, sometimes they aren’t. You may also find safety squat bars, cambered bars, and other specialty items depending on your gym. Unusual bars aren’t standardized, so the weight is just whatever it ended up being when the bar’s maker welded all the parts together. Axles, which are two-inch-thick bars used in strongman competition, can vary wildly—some are made from a lightweight hollow pipe, and may only be 20 pounds or so. Others are made from solid metal and may be around 80 pounds. As always, when in doubt, weigh it.