, A bare minimum
. You can train very effectively even without a rack, safety bars, straight bar
or bench, if you do not do squats or bench presses. Trap Bar bent-legged
deadlifts, plus chins and dips, cover most of the body’s musculature. (e
Trap Bar, comparing equal strength of bars, is cheaper than an Olympic bar.
e Trap Bar has no revolving sleeves.) Just those three exercises, if worked
progressively and for enough months, can produce a lot of muscle. Overhead
presses with the Trap Bar could be done too. Some method of getting the
Trap Bar into the starting position would be necessary, though, because the
rhombus-shaped bar cannot be cleaned to the shoulders like a straight bar
can.. is equipment bare minimum could be the perfect starting point for a
very productive home gym where economy is the priority, and space is very
tight.Bars and plates
. Bars come in different varieties, qualities and prices. ere are Olympic bars,
power bars, exercise bars, cambered bars, and the Trap Bar. Of course all of
them are used for exercising, but the “exercise” bars are for use with “exer-
cise” plates, i.e., the ones that have small-diameter holes (usually about .
inches) and thus the bars have ends a little smaller, at –. inches, to fit
in the plates. Olympic and power bars manufactured according to the speci-
fication of the International Weightlifting Federation are centimeters
long, with a sleeve diameter of millimeters. ey have revolving sleeves
and large-diameter ends to take plates bored with holes inches in diameter
(or slightly bigger, depending on the manufacturer).. Because of inconsistencies between manufacturers of bars and plates, you
may get plates (and collars) that are a tad too tight for your bar. Take your
plates (and perhaps collars too) to a local machine shop and get the holes
bored a little bigger.. At the most expensive end of the market are the elite Olympic bars, includ-
ing Eleiko® and Ivanko®. But most of the Olympic-size bars around today
are poor and weak imitations, so as to be much cheaper. If a bar bends as you
are lifting, it could cause a serious loss of form, and injury. You would also
end up with a useless bar.