A weightlifting bar is built so the shaft can turn inside your hands while you turn your hands over. That is what the needle bearings are for, and it is the single biggest functional difference between a weightlifting bar and anything else. The shaft is 28mm, the grip markings sit 910mm apart to the IWF standard, and the bar is meant to be dropped.
About the photographs. Product photography on this page is illustrative. We are licensing real images of each bar and will swap them in per product as they arrive — until then the pictures show a generic unbranded bar of that type, not the product named beside them.
The same 8 bars as a table, on the figures that decide it.
Every figure is the manufacturer’s or retailer’s own published specification. An em dash (—) means they do not publish that figure — it is never a number we have guessed. “Tensile” is tensile strength in thousands of PSI. “Rotation” is bushings, needle bearings, or both in the same sleeve. No prices are listed here, deliberately: check the current price with the shop.
Including the answers that tell you this is not the category you want.
If you train the snatch and the clean and jerk regularly, you need bearings. The rotation is part of the movement, and fighting a slow sleeve puts the strain on your wrists and elbows. If you only do the occasional power clean, bushings are fine and you should buy a multipurpose bar instead.
Usually the knurl and the tolerance, not the steel. Eleiko’s IWF competition and training bars are both 28mm, both 236,000 PSI, both certified — the competition bar has a sharper 1.2 Competition knurl and the training bar has a gentler 1.2 Training knurl, because competition knurling tears your hands up over a long training block.
No. Cast iron cracks and chips, and the shock goes straight through the sleeve into the bar. Dropping is what bumper plates exist for. If you cannot have bumpers and a suitable floor, you cannot train the Olympic lifts properly, and a bushing bar would serve you better.
Because the IWF specifies a 15kg bar with a 25mm shaft and a 201cm length for women’s weightlifting, against 20kg, 28mm and 220cm for men’s. The thinner shaft is about hand size, not strength, and plenty of men with small hands find a 25mm bar easier to hook grip.
The other 6 categories, and what each is built to do.
A 29mm shaft, almost no whip and a centre knurl that grips your back. Built for the squat, the bench press and the deadlift, and the standard diameter across powerlifting federations.
See the power bars →11 barsOne bar for everything — 28mm to 28.5mm, dual knurl marks for both grip standards, moderate spin. What most home gyms and most mixed-training gyms actually need.
See the multipurpose bars →8 bars15kg, a 25mm shaft and 201cm overall — the IWF specification for women’s weightlifting. The thinner shaft also suits anyone whose hands struggle to close round 28mm.
See the women's 15kg bars →5 barsA 27mm shaft and a longer span between the sleeves, so the bar bends before the plates leave the floor. Aggressive knurl, no centre knurl. Not for squatting or benching.
See the deadlift bars →3 bars32mm to 35mm and 25kg, fully knurled and deliberately stiff. The extra diameter keeps a heavy bar dead still across your back instead of oscillating.
See the squat bars →5 barsLight bars for learning the lifts, and 6ft bars for garages where a 7ft bar will not fit between the walls. Lower load ratings — check them before loading up.
See the technique and short bars →