Powerlifting Bar vs Olympic Weightlifting Bar – What’s the Difference?

Intro

So you want a good barbell, but you’re conflicted as to what type to get.

The two main types of bars are power bars (also called powerlifting bars) and olympic weightlifting bars. Weightlifting bars might also be called olympic bars, or “oly bars” for short. Just to confuse things, “olympic bar” might mean anything. When someone says it, maybe they mean a weightlifting bar, or maybe they mean any bar with 2″ diameter rotating sleeves that will take olympic weights. Who knows. It depends on the context.

FYI: “barbell” and “bar” usually mean the exact same thing. Back in the ancient days, when you had only fixed-weight barbells with those round heads, they were barbells. Then came the adjustable ones, composed of the weights and the bar. So the bar sort of becomes a barbell when it’s loaded with weight, but really it’s often called a barbell whether it’s loaded or not. A barbell, after all, is more than just a steel bar shaft straight from the steel mill. It’s got shoulders, sleeves, bushings, knurling, etc.

In this post we’ll call them “power bars” and “weightlifting bars,” just to be consistent on this page anyway.

Your best choice depends on the exercises it will be used for, and in what kind of environment.

Let’s look at them in more detail…

Power Bars

Power Bars are meant for the “big 3” powerlifting lifts: back squat, bench press and deadlift. These lifts are what powerlifting competitions are all about. But over the years they have also been embraced as good lifts for pretty much anyone to do, over a wide range of goals and training styles, so power bars are what you’ll see at commercial gyms and lots of other places.

There are also extra-long deadlift bars that are another special type of bar.

Power bars, or powerlifting bars, feature:

• Stiff Steel to faciliate slow, controlled movements with minimal whip action
• Center Knurling to keep friction on your back for squats
• Aggressive/Deep Knurling for a no-slip grip
• 810mm Spaced Ring Markings
• Thicker 29mm-32mm Shaft to be more comfortable for bench presses and squats
• Steel or Brass Bushings to allow some spin
• High Tensile Strength (180,000+ PSI) to withstand being slammed on a rack

Weightlifting Bars

Weightlifting Bars used to be seen mainly in specialized olympic lifting gyms. No longer! When Crossfit got big, manufacturers started producing more of these for all the athletes who started learning that olympic lifts were the way to go. The olympic lifts are the snatch and the clean-and-jerk, both lifts ending with the bar held overhead. You’ve seen those lifts performed at the Olympic Games.

These bars have:

• More Flexible Steel to facilitate the whip desired for heavy cleans
• No Center Knurling so it doesn’t scratch the front of your neck during cleans.
• Soft or Medium Knurling on training bars so the bar can slide in your transition from the pull to the catch. However, competition level weightlifting bars have more aggressive knurling to help you complete that single rep and kick everyone’s ass.
• 910mm Spaced Ring Markings
• Thinner 28mm-28.5mm Shaft for a good pulling grip (or 25mm for women’s bars)
• Roller Bearings on the high-end bars for sensitive spin so you can transition your wrists to catch it in rack position on your shoulders.

The ring spacing has to do with the IWF and IPF certification differences. For snatches the grip is pretty wide, so the wider markings helps. The IPF rules actually limit the grip width according to the 810mm spacing.

York makes both weightlifting and power bars, but they all have center knurling because the IWF certification actually requires it even though it serves no purpose in olympic lifts anymore. Back in the day, when the one-handed snatch was a competition lift, you needed center knurling. That’s a pretty rare lift to be doing anymore with a barbell.

All Purpose Bars

All purpose, or bybrid bars, combine some elements of both, because you know what, sometimes you want to do cleans and sometimes you want to do back squats or deadlifts. These are hard to define, because so many bars now are made to overlap in some way or another.

The knurling on these will be somewhere in the moderate range.

The tensile strength will be somewhere in the range of a moderate 150,000 PSI to a high 200,000 PSI or even higher.

Some bars have the power bar ring spacing and aggressive knurling, but the shaft thickness and no center knurling makes them also like weightlifting bars. So what do you call them? It doesn’t matter. Manufacturers have come up with all variations of these elements with the idea that there’s a market for it.

Economy Bars

Economy bars are the cheap imitations. They try to be like their big brothers, and they look a lot like them, but they can’t carry as much weight. They’re made cheaply and aren’t as nice to use.

You can identify economy bars by the hex bolt going into the end, as shown here. This is the worst way to secure the sleeves onto the bar out of all the ways.

The Top All-Purpose Picks

So you’re still conflicted over which type of bar to get. I understand!

Here are my recommendations for bars that will work well for all-around use in a home gym for strength training or whatever you want to do. Use them for cleans, squats, presses, anything you want.

See them here: The Best All-Purpose Bars, and if that’s too pricey for you, The Best Olympic Bar Under $200.

Not Satisfied? Pick the Right Power Bar or Weightlifting Bar

Do you want to avoid hybrid bars and their tradeoffs? Do you want to get more than one bar? Does your routine have exclusively powerlifting or weightlifting style exercises?

If so, you want to know what the best power bar or weightlifting bar is.

Here’s what you want. Check out these articles for handy charts that compare your options:

• Top 4 Budget Olympic Weightlifting Bars
• Deep-Bite Power Lifting Bars Comparison