Are barbell collars necessary?

Barbell collars are necessary for most lifting scenarios to keep you safe and improve your performance. Without them, you will create more risk of injury.

What is your why

Before we go into whether barbell collars are necessary, let me ask you a couple of questions:

Why do you want to train with collars?
Why do you want to get stronger?
Why do you want to build muscle?
What happens when you do?
What happens if you don’t?

These questions might seem trivial to you. They are not. The better your answers are to these questions the more likely it becomes that you will obtain your goals. Sitting down and answering them will lay dividends. Most people go through their lives like this:

What do I want?
How do I get it?
Why do I want it?

Almost everyone knows what they want. Fewer plan in detail how to get it. Almost no one analyses why they want something. This is a good way to be unhappy. What you want changes hundreds of times every day. It depends highly on who you are around, what you do and where your life. As what you want can be very elusive, so will be your experience of life if you only chase what you want. This dynamic changes if you flip the order of these questions on their head:

Why do you want something
How do you get it
What do you need to do to get it

This way you will focus on your innermost desires. All your actions and thoughts will be connected to one central idea. This way everything you do makes more sense. It will have a purpose. This, in turn, makes it more likely for you to succeed and be happy while you are doing it. If you want to know how this works on a psychological basis read Daniel Kahneman's thinking fast and slow. Simon Sinek holds an excellent TED talk on this topic. The story of the Wright brothers is very compelling on why you should start with the why.

Barbell collars

Barbel l collars come in a lot of shapes and colors. You can get them in steel, plastic, Aluminium and other materials.

Some of them are clips while others are collars. The most common version of collars looks a lot like a spiral with two grippers. You have to squeeze them to them on and off the barbell. If your establishment is a little more upstream you get aluminum or plastic clips. These are easier to get on and off. The absolute high end is 2.5 kg collars which are being used in the Olympics.

Collars for the Squat

The barbell back squat is a staple of strength training and bodybuilding. You load the barbell on your back and squat down as low as possible. From there you go back up again. This is one repetition.

Collars are useful for this movement as many people have slight imbalances in their hips. These make the barbell lean a bit stronger in one direction. This creates asymmetrical load which can lead to the plates falling off the barbell. To avoid this collars can be very helpful.

Collars for the Deadlift

The deadlift is one of the heaviest lifts you can do without getting a lot of technique instruction. It starts from the floor and ends at hip height. It is one of the three lifts you compete in for the sport of powerlifting.

The deadlift has the same challenge as the squat in terms of imbalances. With the collars, the plates might slide or fall off on one end. In addition, you have more plates on the bar. This makes it a good idea to secure the plates as they take up more real estate on the bar. This also makes the plates more likely to slide off. Collars help to avoid this.

Collars for the Bench press

Contrary to common belief, the bench press is one of the lifts which do not really need collars. It might actually be safer to train the bench press without collars.

Putting no collars in the bar has the advantage that you wriggle out of a failed lift easier. Once you are pinned under the barbell you can cautiously slip off some plates to make it easier to escape. If there are collars on the bar, the only option to get out of a failed bench press is to do the roll of shame. That hurts and should rather be avoided.

Collars for the Clean and Jerk

The clean and jerk is one of the two Olympic lifts. Firs,t you pick up the weight off the floor and bring it to your shoulders. This part of the lift is the clean. After that, you push the weight form your shoulders to an overhead position. This is the jerk.

The clean and jerk is done with so much power and momentum that you need collars on the bar. To excute the clean and jerk probably it is mandatory to have min als imbalances and movement of the plates on the bar. This is why you often see very sturdy collars in weightlifting competitions.

Collars for the Snatch

What goes for the clean and jerk also goes for the snatch. The snatch is the second lift you will perform when you compete in Olympic weightlifting. Together with the clean and jerk, you will build your total in a weightliftig competition.

As with the clean and jerk, you will work hard to bring the barbell overhead. To maintain the plates in the same spot collars will be necessary.