If you are in the market for an Olympic barbell at a price you can afford, a great quality choice is the Body Solid 7 foot Olympic barbell. I have always found Body Solid products to be well-made and very sturdy for home use. While I can’t claim that one of their barbells is the best budget barbell you can buy, I can vouch for the consistent quality of their products. And, in fact, no one can tell you whether one brand among dozens of cheap barbells is the best, but I can tell you through personal experience that these barbells will perform well for you for years and years.
Why Buy a Cheap Barbell?
Body Solid barbells and other similar budget barbells are just fine for an individual wanting to do pure strength training and will serve for your deadlifting or anything else you want to do. Although there are companies itching to sell very expensive commercial quality barbells for use at home, there is no need for a single individual to pay exorbitant prices for a barbell that was meant to be used by dozens of people a day and withstand unreasonable abuse.
It is not the lack of an expensive barbell that holds you back in your strength training or bodybuilding and an inexpensive barbell can handle much more weight than you might think. Plus, you’ll need plenty of money to buy all the plates you’re going to need! Keep this in mind for any equipment you buy for use at home. Commercial quality equipment is called commercial quality for a reason.
I would not recommend using these types of cheaper barbells for Olympic lifts if you plan on using bumper plates and dropping the bar.
Where To Find Cheap Weight Plates
As any seasoned home lifter will attest, one of the best ways to get weight plates is garage sells or yard sells. Lots of people give up on lifting after buying home exercise equipment, and end up with their equipment sitting around for years gathering dust before they finally decide to sell them for pennies on the dollar.
The weights may be off in weight but otherwise okay to use. Before shopping, read more about weight plates.
While buying weight plates at garage sales or flea markets is fine, buying a barbell this way could be risky. Most people’s home barbells are very low-quality bars that came with a cheap set of plates. Still, you can sometimes find a decent set this way.
Another way to buy weights is at any well-stocked sporting goods store you have near you, like Dick’s Sporting Goods or similar. Getting weight plates shipped is cost prohibitive because of the shipping charges. Sometimes large warehouse membership clubs like Costco or BJ’s will have weight sets with a standard set of weights and Olympic bar for a very good price. You need to research the brand before you buy one of these.
The barbell shown above is the Body Solid Black 7-foot bar. It is actually 86 inches long, making its length fairly standard for a full-size Olympic barbell, and weighs 44 pounds, just a pound under the standard 45 lbs. Keep in mind that the Body Solid chrome version, sold on the same page, lists two different weights, with the specifications reading 37 lbs. This seems to be incorrect. Both versions should weight 44 lbs.
Be aware that some very cheap barbells, in the 60 to $70 range are so much less expensive because they are smaller and weigh less. Although they may be rated for quite a bit of weight, they will not allow you to load as many plates. For example, the Titan 60″ Barbell is very affordable, but it is a full 22 inches shorter and only weights 25 lbs. If you are just starting out this may not seem like a problem but a bar this short will not rack on standard squat racks. I would not recommend you purchase a short light bar unless you simply cannot lift a standard bar yet, and in that case, an even cheaper bar would suffice to get you over the hump until you’re ready to step up.
What’s the Best Budget Barbell?
Articles about the best barbells are usually simple lists, in different price ranges of popular barbells. While some attention may be paid to the details, most barbells in a given price-range are comparable and claiming that one is the BEST, is, quite frankly, lying.
Any barbell made out of steel is not going to just break on you. However, other features, such as the finish and how well the loading sleeves spin can make a difference. The better the barbell, the more durable the finish will be, but keep in mind that any finish will eventually wear off, especially in places where metal meets metal, like the loading sleeves.
The point that is likely to actually fail in a budget barbell, at under 100 bucks, is the point where the loading sleeves and collars attach to the bar. On very cheap barbells these are often just welded on and there is no allowance for rotation. This can make even slow lifts like the deadlift difficult and make these bars completely unsuitable for Olympic style weightlifting. As well, if the weld is not top-notch, it can fail, meaning the sleeves will simply slide off the barbell. This is certainly a bigger problem than some of the finish coming off!
If you are looking for a step above the Body Solid in a slightly higher price range, then I would recommend checking out the XMark Lumberjack 7′ Olympic Bar, Olympic Bar. It has a black-phosphate finish on the shaft with medium-aggressive knurling, chrome plated loading sleeves and brass bushings inside the sleeves for good rotation and long-lasting performance. These barbells also come with optional weight sets so this may be a good way to outfit yourself for strength training or bodybuilding at home. This would make for a very good powerlifting bar but is also suitable for Olympic lifting or Crossfit type workouts, although not ideal for this purpose.
