Deadlift vs trap bar deadlift

The trap bar deadlift is a good option for beginners and anyone who wants to do more volume to build muscle. Strength athletes can use the trap bar as an accessory but have to put their main focus on the barbell deadlift.

What are your goals

Why do you compare the barbell deadlift withdraw trap bar deadlift? Do you want to get strong? Are you afraid of a back injury? Did your trainer tell you to do trap bar deadlifts and you think they are silly? Whatever the reasons it is important to know your goals to pick the right program for you. Even your program can be slightly tweaked through the exercises you use. What I usually find in fitness are three main goal sets

Looks
Performance
Health

If you are interested in looks you probably strive for that perfect physique. You Instagram, your mirror, and tinder await. You are measuring yourself up against Hollywood stars and front cover models. Looking more attractive is helpful for your life. The better you look the more success you will have. To achieve these marvelous looks you need good genetics and a percentage of fat of ten percent or lower in your body. Therefore you have to mainly focus on diet and secondly on exercise.

If you are all about performance you probably want to make the team. Beat the competition by whatever means necessary. Drink raw eggs like rocky. Do one finger push-ups like Bruce Lee. Whatever gets you there. When you are all about performance it is important that the exercises are close to your sport. Time is limited and you have to pay attention that all of your exercises build a pattern which has carryover and supports your main sport. If you tear your biceps in the weight room before an important game you are an asshole, not a hero with a big biceps. Energy levels around important events are also to consider. Scale back on training to be fit on the day.

The last bracket is health. If you are into health you don’t care that much about the mirror or podium. Your main interest is to stay active and mobile. You will not take any risks to reach ambitious goals. You might be happy by just doing yoga in the mornings and have a handful of chia seeds for breakfast.

It is important for you to decide which takes the main priority in your training. Is it looks, performance or health? As you are comparing the trap bar deadlift with the barbell deadlift health is probably the least of your concerns.

The barbell deadlift

The barbell deadlift is often referred to as „the king of all exercises“. Even though there are other variations most people think of a conventional deadlift when you mention the deadlift.

The conventional barbell deadlift begins with the bar in front of you. You will walk up to the bar, grab it with both hands and pull the weight from the floor to the hip. This is the deadlift in a nutshell. You can follow this blog or cantata me directly for more details.

The biggest advantages of the deadlift are its completeness and manliness. There are very few strength exercises which train the entire body under such high loads. There is also something very primal about picking up a very heavy weight off the floor. You might think it is silly, but I find it very satisfying in this digital age.

The biggest disadvantages of the barbell deadlift are its risk of injury and noise. While the deadlift is one of the easiest barbell movements to perform for beginners it also bears some of the biggest injury risks. A poorly performed barbell deadlift puts a lot of strain on your back. This is why you find so many articles on the internet on how to keep your back straight. The other disadvantage is the noise. It is very hard to do a heavy deadlift without making noise. Some gym owners do not take too kindly to that.

The trap bar deadlift

The trap bar deadlift is an alternative to the barbell deadlift. You will use a hex bar instead of a barbell to perform the barbell. Rather than having the steel in front of you, you will stand in a frame of steel.

To perform the trap bar deadlift you will load bar. Pay attention that trap bars usually weigh 10-15 Kg more than the normed barbell. After loading you step inside the frame. Grip the handles. Get tight and pull the weight up. This is the essential lift. For more detail subscribe to my blog.

The biggest advantages of the trap bar deadlift are that it is easier on the back and perform than the barbell deadlift. As your arms are coming down to the side of your body rather than in front there is less strain on the spine. The metal frame makes this free weight a lot more like a machine exercise. There is less potential for the bar to drift and asymmetrical pulls. This makes the trap bar deadlift a great movement for beginners.

The biggest disadvantages of the trap bar deadlift are the extra material and its bad image. If you are running a gym organ be a pain to stock 3 - 4 extra trap bars. You can only do deadlifts and farmers walks with them and they take up a lot of space. This gets even worse in a home gym. The other point is that the trap bar is simply not cool. I know it’s childish but you will seldom find someone bragging about their one rep max trap bar deadlift.

What is better, the trap bar or barbell deadlift

Opinions differ strongly on this one. I personally think that the trap bar deadlift is an ideal fit for anyone who starts with deadlifts or has to do a lot of volumes. Beginners can try the deadlift without straining their backs as much. Athletes and Bodybuilders who want to pack on muscle can do more volume at less risk. I have one deadlift volume day a week and rotate between sumo and trap bar depending on how my back feels that week.

If you are a powerlifter or weightlifter there is no way around the barbell deadlift. You will have to build volume with this lift to perform well on the platform. Also, if you want to impress anyone in the world of strength you need a gold barbell deadlift.

Most popular Rogue bars in 2020

This is an overview of the most popular Rogue barbells per views and click through rates for Marathon-Crossfit.com in 2020. If you want more details on how the data was collected you can dig deeper in what were the most popular Rogue products in 2020.

This is an overview of the most popular barbells on Marathon-CrossFit.com during 2020. The ranking is as followed:

That the operator bar was so popular on Marathon-CrossFit in 2020 came as a surprise to me. It is one of the cheaper Rogue barbells which still has a cool name rather than being a variation of the Rogue Ohio barbell. If you want to feel a little more camouflaged in your life, go with this one. You can read the full review of the operator bar via this link.

The West side bar is a variation of the Ohio bar specifically for powerlifting. It is very similar to the Rogue Ohio power bar which recently has gotten a little more attention from influencers. This is a solid bar if you do not intend to do the Olympic lifts and stick to the bench press, deadlift, and barbell back squat in your training. You can read the full review of the west side bar via this link.

The Rogue Russian bar is another surprise on the Marathon-CrossFit popularity list. While it is one of the most expensive bars you can get from Rogue I personally find that it is more of a collector's item with nostalgia attached to it. It is a great piece of craftsmanship to recreate a bar from the Soviet era. Unfortunately, the collar system is not used in competition anymore and also tenders the bar useless once you lose one of the collars. Rogue also does not provide an option to buy the custom collars separately in case you do lose them. Based on this I would take the Pyrros bar over the Russian bar any given day for this budget. You can read the full review of the Rogue Russian bar by following this link.

The Rogue Multi-grip bar is a great additional tool to bring your bench press training to the next level. Especially if you are a big fan of the Westside training method as it asks for many grip variations. This bar might not be your first purchase, but fun addition to your gym once all the essentials are covered. You can read the full review of the Rogue Multi-grip bar by following this link.

The Chan bar is my personal favorite if you want to do it all with your barbell. It is reasonably priced, has a cool design, and can be used for Olympic lifts and the big three alike. If you are a CrossFit fan who wants to workout from home, this is a great pick. You can read the full review of the Rogue Chan bar by following this link.

Classic barbell

The classic barbell is what you you will find in most gyms. They vary widely in their quality with the York ones being the most cost efficient and therefore at the lower end of the quality range. You might find barbells with bushing or bearing, still most of them will have bushing in your local gym.

If your local gym is serious about lifting you might find specific olympic weightlifting and powerlifting barbells. These have a more aggressive knurl to ensure more grip for the professionals. You will experience these to be rougher on your skin which has the benefit of being able to lift more and the downside of higher likelihood to get your skin damaged.

In addition the knurl marks are slightly different between olympic and powerlifting bars to show you where to put your hands. Usually the powerlifting bars are built to withhold more psi (basically tells you how mch weight you can put on the bar until it breaks) than olympic bars due to the fact that there is more load moved in the powerlifts than in olympic lifts.

Lifting is not always for beginners. You need proper technique, balance and a bit of strength to do it. Otherwise you might hurt your shins on the deadlift or pulll some muscles when squatting. Improper squatting might also harm your spine. So get proper advise or start deadlifting with other bars.