Oly bars female vs male?

fishlover888

Hi ladies,
Looking for some advice about oly bars. The last gym I was at only had the 45 lb men's oly bars and I got pretty comfortable with them because there was no other option... However now that I'm switching to working out in the therapy gym I am pretty sure I noticed a slightly shorter, slightly thinner bar today... possibly the women's 35 lb oly?

Is there any benefit to using either bar? Should I switch to the women's bar?

I'm doing SL and sometimes incorporate clean/press or other moves (working my confidence up to do a snatch)
Thank you!

Will_Thrust_For_Candy

Hell to the no on the switch! If you've been using a standard 45lb oly bar and you're good with it then carry on! Whoop for being a BAMF and lifting heavy *kitten*! :bigsmile: :drinker:

booyainyoface

i love my womens bar... i have small hands and i can grip it better for my oly lifts. also the few inches it is shorter will make it more stable on all your presses for a smaller frame. i have a pair of fat grips i use for forearm strength on occasion. use what is comfortable for you, a 35 or 45 pound bar doesn't matter, just add more weights to the ends

tameko2

Shorter might make it harder to deadlift but I have absolutely no experience with a woman's bar - I only say that because a proper 'deadlift barbell' that they will use for powerlifting is on the longer side for extra reboundyness -- I'm not even sure if that applies at the weights we're doing, frankly!

It might make squatting easier, since the weights are closer in to the middle. Do they have these bars for bench pressing too?

You can use whichever you like provided you have no aspirations to competing (where they will likely not have womens bars).

At this point since you're already beyond using the standard oly bar, I don't think you'd get much benefit from it, BUT! I would do my empty bar warmups, at least my upper body warmups, with the women's bar if I had access. At my own gym I actually warm up with the curl bar for the overhead press sometimes. When your max overhead opress is 80lbs, warming up with a 45 lb bar is still sort of heavy.

Amazing1985RSD

The reason for the differences in the bars are due to the general differences between men and women as far as strength and size etc. My suggestion would be to use whichever one feels more comfortable to you.

fishlover888

Thanks for the responses!

I'll probably just stick with the 45 lb oly then, since it seems like normal now. I have pretty massive hands for a girl I guess. Maybe I'll play with the 35 lb a few times to see if I feel any improvement in form or ease, just for fun.

@Tameko - like the idea of 35 lb warm up, esp when 45 is so close to my work weight. they just have 1 everything adjustable rack (power rack? I don't know the right names for things) which I use for all the lifts so I can bench with the 35lb bar if I wanted to.