You can find an Olympic barbell set for anywhere from 0 to 00+, so how can you tell what's quality and what's junk? Keep these tips in mind and you can easily find the right Olympic weight set for your budget and your needs.
1) What kind of lifts are you going to be using the Olympic barbell set for?
a) Olympic Lifts. If you plan on doing a lot of Olympic lifts like cleans, jerks, etc... then you need to find a high quality barbell that has smoothly spinning sleeves. The reason for this is that smoothly spinning sleeves protect your wrists from potential injury when you whip the bar up from the ground and snap your wrists underneath the bar. You're also going to need one that can withstand being dropped from overhead while loaded with bumper plates. A decent quality barbell is going to run you a minimum of 0. If you're planning on moving some serious weight, you should expect to spend around 0 to find a barbell that will last a lifetime. If you want the best money can buy, you're looking at spending around 0.
b) Power Lifts. If you're planning on primarily doing lifts like the bench press, squat, and deadlift, you don't really need to spend as much as if you're an Olympic lifter because you're not dropping the barbell from overhead. You also aren't as concerned with sleeve rotation and the whip of the barbell. Therefore, you can get away with spending about 0 to find something that will suit most lifters. Any cheaper than this and you can pretty much guarantee it's either going to be permanently bent once you start moving anything over 300 lbs, or it will have strange issues like smaller sleeves which require weird sized weights. Don't get one of those. If you're really strong, or you plan on mixing in a little Olympic lifting, I'd recommend stepping up to the 0 range to get something you won't need to upgrade later on.
2) How much weight do you need with your Olympic barbell set?
a) Olympic Lifts. If you plan on doing Olympic lifts, consider buying rubber bumper plates. A lot of Olympic barbell sets come with 300 pounds of iron weights. That's fine if you're only doing power lifts, but bumper plates are pretty much required if you plan on pushing yourself with lifts where the weight will be overhead and you need to be able to drop the bar. The bumper plate protects your floors and your bar from damage by absorbing some of the impact. The only downside is that you will have to drop some money here to buy quality. Most people will be totally fine with buying less than 200 lbs because the majority of these lifts are moving weight overhead, which is no easy feat. Expect to spend around 0-300 for a good quality starter set of bumper plates.
b) Power Lifts. Simply put, get as much iron as you can. You don't need a 300 lb set if you're just starting out, but at least 200 lbs is a good starting point because you'll quickly hit that mark doing deadlifts. If you like to mix in Olympic lifting, consider buying a set of 45 lb bumper plates and then use iron plates to supplement those.
If you keep these basic guidelines in place when looking for an Olympic weight set, you should have a good idea of how to find the best Olympic barbell set for the money.
| Price : $139.00 | Post Date : Nov 30, 2011 16:34:05
