How To Pick Best Safety Squat Bar? 5 Things You Must Check Before.
Last Updated September 3, 2021
Safety squat bar is one of the best specialty bars you can buy, like other specialty bars: squat bar and it's a great assistance movement to perform squats for people with limited shoulder mobility or the ones who want to keep a more upright torso position.
That being said, there’s a lot on the market, especially as they become more and more popular. We see a lot more companies coming out with their versions of it. Every safety squat bar has pros and cons.
But there’s a whole big gambit from stuff running from down to $100 up to like $700, depending on the brand. Among many, this is one of my favorites, from Titan Fitness, which is a great safety squat bar.
But because I do think regardless of which brand you go with, there are a couple of things that you definitely want to avoid. 😅
👉 In this blog, I want to tell you why you want to avoid these particular bars and which are some of the best safety squat bars found.
5 Things You Must Check Before Selecting Any Best Safety Squat Bar.
1. Distance between the handles:
Oftentimes on a lot of these cheap safety squat bars, you’ll find that the handles are extremely wide. In some cases, up to 15 inches. Yes, the size does make a big difference, but in a negative way because the wider you go on the handle is the wider it’s going to sit on your shoulders.
😀 Further, it gets away from your neck and your traps and your upper back, and the more it starts to sit on your actual shoulders.
Maybe you have a big beefy wide shoulder, or you are a muscular man and/or woman, but chances are you’re not as wide as you think you are. And as that bar gets wider and wider between the handles, it starts to rest more on the bone than it does on the muscle. This makes it not only extremely uncomfortable, but in some cases, it can actually make it painful.
Even though these safety squat bar weights are padded, that padding usually isn’t enough. Especially on the more affordable bars. So that’s one thing you should watch out for.
2. It shifts very regularly:
It starts to shift around as you actually do start practicing your lifts. So you want some pads and handles that are going to be a little bit closer & tighter around your neck and your traps and on that beefy part of your back.
In order to better utilize that safety squat bar and not cause you any more pain or discomfort on the angle at which the handle and the camber of the bar are related.
The problem is on a lot of cheaper safety squat bars you actually find they have the exact same angle, meaning that when you point the handles up, the camber angle also points straight out.
Oftentimes on a lot of the better bars out here, the cambers offset so that way when you’re putting the handles up or wherever position the weights are. It still pointed backward somewhat, and they’re not as far forward. That’s really important.
3. Bad squat angle.
Why use safety squat bar? Most people use it because they want to emulate what a squat feels like but not have the pain or issues that sometimes a shoulder impingement may cause. Or they just want to take some stress off and they want to work on other aspects of their squat.
But these cheap safety squat bar weights don’t have that offset angle. What you find is the weight gets really far out in front of you and it stops being like a squat. It starts being more like you’re holding a kettlebell out in front of you.
Depending on the camber (angle) and how far those are offset, if at all, it can really kind of throw you off. So it’s not a true representation of a squat.
Whereas a safety squat bar with offset angles is a little bit better and more akin to a front or a back squat. That’s another thing that you’re going to want to pay attention to.
4. Neck Pad Padding
The neck pad padding itself is really important here. If you can, I would really highly suggest that you look for padding that’s complete around the bar. What does it mean? Meaning it’s not in a three separate design piece because I’ve found with these, they tend to shift and they tend to wear down a lot quicker.
Yes, they are somewhat adjustable, which probably is easier to replace and get on and off. But in the long run, they can move around and actually leave parts of the bar exposed, which can be resting on your shoulders or collarbone. It may be depending on which safety squat bar you have and it can just generally break down quicker.
So I prefer to have some of the ones that are sewn around completely and attached that way. There are no gaps and the pads won’t be shifting while you’re using them.
5. Thickness of the safety squat bar
Another thing you want to look up for in my opinion is look for bars that are actually not your standard diameter. In most other cases when we’re talking about straight bars like powerlifting bars, weightlifting bars, which have a certain diameter from 28 to 20mm and a half to 29mm for the most part.
You start getting some specialty bars, like squat bars, which are thicker. Deadlift bars are a little bit thinner for a bar like this (safety squat bar) that has a camber.
I would actually suggest looking for a thicker style bar because you’re going to experience a lot of whip. Especially if we’re talking about again a bar that doesn’t have offset handles and cambers.
What you’re gonna find is that if the weights pointed up and as you start to load it up a thinner diameter bar is going to cause a lot more bounce under heavier loads which is going to throw you off even further than it would if the weight is too far out in front of you.
This is the thing that you should look out for.
You’ll see a lot of these more affordable safety squat bars offer other features which I don’t really think have much carryover. That is:
- Knurling: They’ll actually offer some knurling on the bar which for most other bars you want. But for the case of a safety squat bar where you’re going to be holding on to those handles, it doesn’t really make much sense.
- Rotating sleeves: You’ll see things like sleeves that spin. Again, who cares because we don’t really need the sleeves to spin. In this case, those are just kind of extra fluff.
As a way to say we add these features. But in reality, they don’t really do anything in terms of what you’re looking for.
Which is the best safety squat bar to buy?
To name a best of best, we have
Titan safety Squat Bar is available at half the cost of the elite FTS version. But it’s like a direct clone, so they took all the things that the elite FTS version does so well, which is having
1. Thinner handles in terms of the distance between them.
2. Beefier padding that’s stitched all the way around an offset angle between the handles in the camber.
3. A thicker overall diameter for the bar.
And they basically just found a way to outsource that to make it cheaper, and it’s really interesting from the titan standpoint because if you look at their Titan v1 bar it actually goes against everything I just said and kind of hits on all the negatives and their second bar hits on all the positives. This makes it probably the most affordable option for most people.
Now if you are in India the Bullrock safety squat bar is still great.
But again it’s gonna cost you a little bit more money in the India context, so where the other barbells in India retail for right around 10000 – 20000 along with shipping, the bullrock safety squat bar is going to run you about 15000 or more roughly.
Which makes this Made in India product a little more costly, and for this price, only the specialized kind of lifters would order it.
Because forget specialty bars, you’re not going to be using them all the time. You shouldn’t waste or sink in hundreds and hundreds of rupees if you don’t have to. But you want to make sure you’re getting a bar that does what it’s supposed to do the best.
Kabuki bar not only hits on all the pros I’ve mentioned, but it also allows you to actually change the angle between where the weights are and the handle itself. Depending on what kind of feeling you want to get, you can adjust those for whatever you want.
Meaning, if you want the weight in front of you, you can. If you want it further back, you can. You can actually adjust the height of the weight itself.
The biggest downside with the Kabuki bar though is the price as it retails for roughly around $660 before shipping in tax. Roughly $700 all.
Which, in my opinion, even though it’s a great bar for a specialty bar, just doesn’t really make sense.
These are just some quick analysis on specialty bars: safety squat bars. If you’re looking to buy one I think they’re a great investment. There are a lot of options out there. But make sure you spend your money wisely.
FAQs About Safety Squat Bar:
Should I buy a safety squat bar?
Lower-body strength is a critical performance indicator in nearly all programs, so adopting the best safety squat bar to improve leg training is a worthy attempt. To be honest, if the bar is utilised correctly, it can help the athlete keep upright and promote a range of motion. You can have it if you are a true squatter like us, Mensquats team.
Are safety bar squats harder?
Don’t be intimidated by the safety squat bar, which looks like a cart pull. It’s not necessarily tougher or easier to squat with it; it’s simply another squat pattern to test your technique and strength.
How much does a safety squat bar weigh?
The overall construction determines the total weight of the bar. A safety squat bar that has been created to be an actual beast could weigh anywhere between 45 to 70 pounds, or 20 kgs to 32 kgs, always on the upper scale. For obvious reasons, it has many attachments, pads, handles that makeup SSB total weight.
Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any specific questions on safety squat bar weight leave them in the comment section below.
Thanks for reading.
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