“We change our tools and then our tools change us.” – Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon
The gym you visit every day is full of tools that can change your physique. Most of us, though, use the same few tools week in and week out.
Barbells, dumbbells, and cable machines are our accoutrement for getting jacked. But there are some unique barbells — if you’re lucky enough to have them at your gym — that will challenge your workouts and turn you into a beast.
Cambered Bar
You’ve loaded the bar with your next goal weight and you’re ready to make it your bitch.
As you lift the bar off the rack, you shudder a bit under the weight — it’s heavy, like really heavy. But you’re not worried, you’re going to set a new PR.
Lowering the weight, you prepare mentally for the push off your chest.
Digging deep, you push as hard as you can.
Nothing.
The bar won’t move. It’s sitting on your chest trapping you between the bar and bench. You feel like a loser.
One of the weakest areas for most lifters is the bottom position of the bench press.
When it comes to deadlifts, you can perform deficit deadlifts to get stronger from the floor.
For squats, you can do paused squats or box squats to get stronger out of the hole.
So, what the hell do you to get stronger at the bottom position of the bench press?
Enter, the cambered bar.
This unique bar increases the range of motion of the bench press; allowing your hands to dip about an extra inch or two below your chest.
As I said above, bros we’re the weakest at the low or middle of the bench press. A cambered bar allows you to further train this weak point and improve your strength with a standard bar.
Be aware, though, that this bar can put more strain on your pecs and shoulders. So it’s best to use this for assistance work. Never load it up with a ton of weight.
Fat Bars (pictured at top)
If your gym has fat bars, you’re lucky.
The diameter of these bars is 2-3 times that of the typical barbell. Making them pretty pricey for most gyms.
However, these bad boys have been known to help lifters increase their peak numbers on regular barbells by 10-12%. If your bench press max is 300 pounds. A 10-12% increase in a matter of a few weeks is huge.
Because of their thickness, fat bars help provide an increase in motor unit recruitment in your fast twitch muscle fibers. The more motor units working means more muscles working.
Above all, though, fat bars help you increase your grip strength. You’re only as strong as your weakest link and most lifters lack a strong grip.
Because you can’t wrap your entire hand around the bar, your forearms, biceps, and hands have to work harder to support the weight.
If you’re an MMA fighter, wrestler, or participate in any other contact sport that involves grappling or needing a strong grip, you’d be smart to train with fat bars.
Swiss Bar/Football Bar
This isn’t a common bar you’ll see in most generic big box gyms.
However, if you can find it, this is a great bar for training your shoulders and triceps and even for neutral grip bench pressing.
This bar puts your hands in a neutral position. The same position your hands are in when you do hammer curls.
If you’ve injured yourself from bench pressing in the past, changing to a neutral grip bench press is safer on your shoulders. That includes any dumbbell pressing you do as well.
Where this bar really kicks ass, though, is in training your shoulders.
Since it’s much easier on the shoulders, due to its neutral grip, this bar can be used to help you build massive boulder-like delts.
Here’s a fun challenge for you.
Grab this bar and perform a full range front raise — that means taking the bar from your hips to all the way overhead.
Your shoulders and traps will scream for mercy, but they’ll also respond by growing like never before.
If you decide to bench press with this bar, be warned. At first, it’s a little awkward to get off the rack. Make sure you have a spotter to help you for a bit.
Different Strokes for Bigger Yokes
Not all gyms will have these specialty barbells. But if you’re gym happens to keep them around, take a couple of weeks and train using these unique barbells.
Then return to the standard bar and watch your strength explode.