Rise of the Trap Bar Doesn’t Mean the Death of the Straight Bar

Happy Friday all! Who's excited for baseball season? Anyone? Well, if you're a Red Sox fan like myself, I can't blame you for not being super amped. Well in either case, I've got some entertainment for you to slide into that weekend with, hope you enjoy.

Today in the fitness industry, you get a little further by making a stand against certain things and being a little polarizing. There does come a point where people take that too far and just start talking stupid. I get it, when things are new, it’s scary, but if those things stuck around in similar circles to your own, there might be something to it. Don’t bash it because you don’t understand or you feel irrelevant because of it.

Case and point, most of us have noticed that more and more people are using the trap bar. If you’re one of these idiots that thinks it makes you weak or less of a lifter, coach or, god help you, a person, please delete all of your social media before you spit more of that trash into folks ears and eyes. The days of these extreme “hardcore” views being cool are numbered.

I don’t care if it’s not allowed on the platform, 75% of trainees do not give a damn to ever get on the platform. There’s NOTHING wrong with either. They just want to be strong and be healthy.

Here’s the real life facts, some people are just simply not put together to handle a straight bar deadlift, off of the floor. Have you ever tried having a big basketball center or rugby second row try to pull a straight bar off the floor? I’m guessing it didn’t go very well. A trap bar, or even an elevated trap bar is likely the best solution for these types of people to train their hinge pattern. Let’s do a little check list;

➖Are the hips above the knees? Yes
➖Are the shoulders above the hips? Yes
➖Is the spine in neutral position (lumbar especially)? Yes
➖Are we targeting glutes and hammies with a bit of quad involvement? Yes

It’s a deadlift and it’ll be effective. END
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By the ridiculous standards that these fools are setting, a Safety Squat Bar squat isn’t a real squat, yet many of them don’t seem to have a problem involving it in their trainings.

Many folks, more experienced and smarter than I, seem to agree that the trap bar. Chris Duffin, he’s a pretty damn smart guy. He made it a point to make a new and better version of a trap bar. Suffice to say, as smart as he is, if he didn’t think the trap bar was a viable option for deadlifts, he probably wouldn’t have put time and effort to make a trap bar of his own.

There’s also a great post that Greg Knuckols put out in February of 2017, again really smart person, that extensively covered just how good the trap bar is, go read it. Yeah, like now.

So next time you hear someone shitting on the trap bar, kick 🦵 them in the shin…or at least tell them they are 100% wrong.

Thanks for your time and have a good weekend everyone!