After Years of Testing, We Found the Best Barbells for 2022

By Kate Meier

Whether you want to squat, deadlift, snatch, row, or press, the barbell is arguably the best piece of equipment you can use. Its versatility makes it a centerpiece for home gyms, as you can use it to build muscle, power, and endurance.

Our team of expert product testers has been using barbells for years, both in our own training as well as putting them under the lens of a multi-point methodology to rate factors like value, quality, durability, and more. After getting our hands on nearly 100 of them, we can confidently say that what you see below are the best barbells on the market.

Marked by exceptional machining, the Rogue Fitness Ohio Bar is our pick for the best Olympic barbell you can find. It boasts a 190,000 PSI tensile strength, which, in layman’s terms, means you can drop this bar from overhead with significant weight and not worry about it suffering permanent damage.

The Ohio Bar has a bronze bushing system, so it’s great for movements like squats and deadlifts, but still spins well enough to use on snatches and cleans. Choose from finishes that include highly corrosion-resistant stainless steel (which is a price upgrade), black oxide, black zinc, and E-coat. The Ohio Bar starts at around $300 but is backed by Rogue’s lifetime warranty.

Named for the Rogue Fitness owners’ dog, the Bella Bar is a girl’s best friend: It features a 25-millimeter shaft ideal for smaller hands, and it weighs 15 kilograms (33 pounds), which is the standard for women’s CrossFit and weightlifting competitions.

And best of all? The Bella comes with Rogue’s purposeful, quality build. At 190K PSI tensile strength, this is a bar you can put through rep after rep with little worry about bending. You also have choices in finish, color, and even design: Elite CrossFitters, Tia-Clair Toomey Orr and Katrin Davidsdottir, each have their own Bella Bar on the Rogue website. Be warned: the black zinc coating will fade over time; and if you want the highest quality stainless steel, you’ll be looking at a $330 price tag.

Looking for affordable home gym equipment? Here’s the thing about budget barbells: If you go too cheap, you won’t be able to use the bar for long: It will rust, or it might bend, or maybe it won’t fit your weight plates correctly. So our best budget barbell pick is right around $200, but going too much cheaper than that could land you in really-low-quality territory.

Fortunately, the Titan Atlas Bar is a solid pick, whether you choose the 15- or 20-kilogram version. The tensile strength is a whopping 220K PSI, which is much higher than the minimum we expect to see on an Olympic bar (180K). While the chrome finish on the Titan bar isn’t the most protective, you still get a decent bar with medium knurl that you can use for powerlifting, weightlifting, and functional fitness.

Olympic barbells come in all kinds of options: Ball bearing bars are great for Olympic lifts, bushing bars are ideal for powerlifting, and sharp knurling is great for grip. If you’re a jack-of-all-trades instead of a specialist, then you likely want a bar that can handle just about anything. Enter the REP Fitness Sabre Bar.

With medium knurling, the Sabre gives you choices for weight (15-kilogram and 20-kilogram) as well as knurling (get it with center knurl for more security on squats, or without it to avoid that scratchy feeling in the front-rack position). While the 150K PSI tensile strength is a little low, our testers have used and dropped this bar multiple times without any issues.

If you want a barbell that gets the job done but don’t want to drop too much dough, then The Beast from CAP Barbell is the way to go. This is an ideal bar for work from the rack because it’s affordable and you won’t care if it gets scratched in and out of the j-cups. At under $150 with free shipping on Amazon, The Beast also comes with free returns.

With the good comes the not-so-good: The 110K PSI tensile strength means this bar could be susceptible to bending if you drop it or load with too much weight. Also, the black phosphate finish means you can almost guarantee that The Beast will suffer some rust. But, if you don’t care about either of those things, then The Beast could be a great choice for your home gym.

If you love the feel of fast lifts, then you might also love the American Barbell Training Bar. Its bushing system provides an incredibly smooth spin for snatching and cleaning. Our testers found the knurling to be just right for Olympic movements, as it’s sharp enough to get a good grip but not so sharp that it’s painful to train.

We love that the Training Bar is made to IWF specifications, so you can train exactly like you would compete. Yes, the bar is on the expensive side at more than $300, but that’s about a third of the price of an Eleiko for a bar that performs nearly as well.

The names of the Synergee barbells (Open, Regional, and Games) might ring a bell if you are someone who WODs. Designed specifically with CrossFit in mind, the Regional Bar – the brand’s best-seller – is suitable for both heavy lifts and high repetitions. Because it boasts 190K PSI tensile strength, you can drop this bar loaded with weight sans worry.

There are two options for the finish of the Regional Bar: black phosphate and hard chrome. While both are better than bare steel, they aren’t the absolute best at preventing rust and cosmetic defects. However, at just over $200 with free shipping on Amazon, this great barbell is still hard to beat if you’re a functional fitness fan.

If there is one thing Rogue Fitness does well, it’s manufacture barbells. In fact, just about every barbell on the brand’s site is backed by a lifetime warranty – and that includes the Ohio Power Bar. This 20-kilogram bar comes in multiple finishes, ranging from an affordable bare steel option all the way to an almost-$500 stainless steel beauty.

The Ohio Power Bar features an aggressive volcanic knurl, which is ideal for a powerlifting bar. For the masochists, there is an option to go for the Aggro Bar, which is an Ohio Power Bar with a knurl so sharp you’ll cry tears of joy. With International Powerlifting Federation markings and center knurl, this bar is ideal for powerlifters as well as those who just like to go heavy at home. Just be sure to choose your finish wisely: bare steel has a tendency to rust.

There are two groups of people: Those who think Eleiko makes some of the best barbells, and those who are wrong. Proof of that is the IWF Training Bar, which features 215K PSI tensile strength, a dust proof coating on a proprietary chrome shaft, needle bearings for a fantastic spin, and a certification from the IWF itself.

If you want a weightlifting bar this beautiful, you’re going to have to pay for it: literally. You’ll have to shell out nearly $1,000 for the Training Bar. Is it worth it? That’s a personal call. If I had the money, I’d outfit my entire home gym with Eleiko bars. This one in particular comes with a 12-year warranty, and Eleiko is known for great customer service. Plus, you get to tell all your friends you have an Eleiko.

A safety squat bar may not be an essential piece of home gym equipment for most people, but it’s an absolute life-saver for people with injuries. We love the Titan Fitness Safety Squat Olympic Bar V2. Our testers found it was a vast improvement over the original version, featuring incredibly comfortable padding and durable, thick steel.

This isn’t a bar you’ll drop, so there is no reported tensile strength. However, it does have a 1,500-pound weight capacity, so load up. Also, at around $300 with Titan’s always-available free shipping, this is a great deal on a specialty bar. The biggest downside is that there is only a one-year warranty.

What to Look for in a Barbell for Your Home

I strongly encourage anyone with an interest in resistance training to consider a barbell. If you don’t know much about the 7-ish feet of raw steel power, here are some things to look at before buying.

Bar Weight

Olympic barbells typically come in two set weights: 20 kilograms (44 pounds) and 15 kilograms (33 pounds). You’ll find some bars out there at 45 and 35 pounds, and specialty bars with varying weights, but for the most part, high-quality bars will be either 20 or 15 kilos. There are also bars that are lighter in weight for beginners and youth.

Why does it matter? Unless you’re competing in a sport like powerlifting or weightlifting, it really doesn’t. Lifters in competition should practice on the same type of bar on which they compete. For everyone else, you can choose which bar weight is most appropriate for you. Men tend to lift on 20 kilogram bars and women on 15 kilogram bars, but there is no rule that says you have to pick one based on your gender.

Tensile Strength

Tensile strength is only important if you plan on going really heavy and/or drop the bar. We measure this in a barbell by pounds per square inch, or PSI. The number refers to how many pounds per square inch the bar can tolerate before it suffers permanent damage, like a bend in the shaft. You might see flex in a barbell when it’s loaded with substantial weight, but a well-built bar with a high tensile strength will flex and return to normal. A lower PSI bar could flex and stay bent.

A decent bar will have a PSI of about 150,000; a great bar will have 180K or higher. That isn’t to say that you need to pass on the bars with 110K PSI: Those bars can be just fine for lighter work and lifting where dropping isn’t a concern.

Finish

The finish of the barbell is especially important if your home gym is not in a climate-controlled environment. An unfinished bar, referred to as “bare steel”, is most susceptible to rust and corrosion. Finishes like chrome and cerakote offer great protection, and a stainless steel bar gives you the most resistance to the elements (and is often the most expensive).

Spin

The spin of the barbell refers to the shaft’s ability to rotate in the handles. Spin is absolutely vital for maximum performance if your strength training involves lifts like snatches, clean, and jerks. If you just hit the big three – squat, bench press, and deadlift – spin doesn’t really matter as much and you can look at something like a powerlifting barbell.

You’ll know how well a bar spins by looking at whether it is a bushing or bearing bar. Bushing bars spin slower, but will still rotate. Bearing bars tend to move faster.

Shaft Diameter

The diameter, or thickness, of the barbell’s shaft is really important for those with small hands. Typically, a 20 kilogram barbell has about a 28.5 millimeter diameter, and a 15 kilogram barbell (sometimes called a “women’s barbell”) has a 25 millimeter diameter. Three millimeters might not sound like a lot, but if you have small hands, it makes a difference. You can get a better grip on the bar if the shaft diameter is smaller.

Sleeve Length

The length of a barbell’s sleeves refer to how much room you have to load plates. For most people, this isn’t really an issue, because most of us don’t squat or deadlift near 500 pounds. And most barbells have standard-ish loadable sleeve lengths: a little over 16 inches on a 20 kilo bar, and around 12.5 inches on a 15 kilo bar.

If you choose a bar with very short loadable sleeves, keep in mind that you might want to invest in very narrow weight plates if you want to go heavy.

Sleeve Diameter

The thickness of the sleeves absolutely matters because it needs to match your weight plates. There are two main types of barbells: Olympic barbells, and everything else.

Olympic bars work with Olympic plates: that is, a standard barbell has an almost-2-inch sleeve diameter, and the plate has an almost-2-inch hole (50 millimeters on both to be exact).

If you aren’t getting an Olympic bar with Olympic plates, pay close attention to the sleeve diameter so you can find bumper plates that work.