Bar Talk

This is a review of the Elite Weightlifting Bar – an Olympic training bar that’s manufactured by one of the most established and experienced bar manufacturers that you have probably never heard of; a Taiwanese company called Gymway. Gymway has been producing mid-range and high-performance, private-label bars for many years now; longer than most of [...]

This is an extensive review of the Texas Body Building Bar; Texas Power Bar’s newest bar, and the result of a collaboration with pro bodybuilder and Texas native, Branch Warren. The Texas Body Building Bar has been a terribly fun bar for me to review. I have thoroughly enjoyed training with it for the last [...]

Rogue recently added yet another finish option for the 45-pound version of the Ohio Power Bar. That’s right, now in addition to bare steel, stainless steel, black zinc, and Cerakote you can pick up the OPB with Rogue’s black E-Coat finish. You know, just on the off chance you thought there was a shortage of [...]

This is a review for the Rep Fitness Deep Knurl Power Bar EX, a high-tensile strength, fully-stainless steel, aggressively-knurled powerlifting bar. Many of you may be wondering what took me so long to get around to this review. The Rep Deep Knurl has been available for a couple of months now, and those of you [...]

Welcome to the Garage Gym’s Olympic Barbell Review and Shopping Guide. If you happen to be in the market for a quality weightlifting bar, power bar, WOD bar, or a general-purpose bar, then you’ve come to the right place. If you’re interested in learning the basics of barbell construction, then again, you’ve come to the [...]

This is a review for the Fringe Sport 20 kg Hybrid Bar, a high-tensile strength, multi-purpose barbell that readers have suggested I review a surprising amount of times since its release. Well I finally snatched one up, and here is that review. The Hybrid Bar is a 28.5 mm, dual-marked bar intended to offer a [...]

I previously reviewed the Buddy Capps Texas Deadlift Bar back June of 2019, and I gave it  a very positive review with zero hesitation. It is an amazing training implement put out by an impressive company. Texas Power Bars (Capps Welding) is a highly experienced, reputable, and knowledgeable company that’s been in the business since [...]

This is a quick review of the Vulcan Strength 1-Basic Safety Squat Bar (SSB); an affordable yet fully-functional alternative to pretty much every other safety squat bar on the market. Being offered for the low price of $209, the Vulcan 1-Basic Safety Squat Bar sports a 700-lb max capacity, true 50 mm sleeves (no axle [...]

It’s been so long since I have reviewed a Fringe Sport product. I don’t know why that is, as I really do miss reading Peter’s extremely random product descriptions and trying to decipher and extract all the pertinent details from them, but I don’t have to miss it anymore because I am back with a [...]

This is an evaluation and review of the two new Stainless Steel Curl Bars by Rep Fitness. I purchased both the 30-lb, 55″, standard-length EZ curl bar, and the 35-lb, 72″, Rackable EZ Curl Bar; both in stainless steel (chrome versions are also available.) I wanted to pick up the rackable variant because rackable curl bars [...]

A few months back I was looking to pick up a new trap bar for the gym. I wanted something basic, but not something cheap. I was willing to put some money into this new hex bar, but I wasn’t trying to see how many [mostly-unnecessary] bells & whistles I could cram into it and [...]

This is a review for the Vulcan Absolute Stainless Steel Olympic Bar, easily one of the most impressive and attractive high-performance Olympic weightlifting bars on the market – and I don’t mean just among the few other stainless steel Olympic bars out there. Priced at around $700; no small sum to be sure; the Absolute [...]

I get asked time and time and time again about the various trap bar options out there, so I figured that it was finally time to put something together for those of you who who happen to be in the market. Here it is! My [long overdue] hex and trap bar shopping guide. I hope [...]

It’s finally here! My review of the Buddy Capps Texas Deadlift Bar! This review took a little longer to finish than I had originally planned.  I tend to do so many barbell reviews that when a couple of non-barbell review opportunities came up (the Body Solid Leg Curl / Leg Extension and the Rep Fitness [...]