Story time: Once upon a time I was in the gym, and this tall swedish girl was using the last available barbell to do hip-fuckaround-thrusteroos or whatever. She finishes and then I see the bar looks like the women's bar and I ask her, "is that the women's bar?" And she says, "well I don't know if I'd call it THAT, but it is the 15kg bar" in a really offput and disgusted sarcastic type of way. I was so confused with her demeanor, but then I realized that I'm in a cult AKA the weightlifting ingroup that nobody gives a shit about in the real world so of course she didn't realize that they use these for competition, so I said, "oh, no, women use 15kg bars in weightlifting while the men use 20kg". She looks me up and down like I was made of sludge and she's like, "women can use WHATEVER bar they want to lift, dude!" and she stormed away before I could further explain. These other 2 girls looked at me and started sneering in the corner like I was a misogynist chauvinist pig trying to enforce women to use a 15kg bar like some fiat rule handed down by god when really I'm just a weightlifting nerd trying to figure out what bar she just finished using so I can train 😩 This misunderstanding lives rent free in my head daily even though it happened like 3 years ago.
Well we all understand that feminism isn't about equality, it's about dominant and those women are sneering because they want to enslave you even if they can't
@@jeddafakee91 because sports have standards, soccer, volleyball, basketball, baseball/softball, ETC ETC ETC, all have different measurements for fields, balls, and equipment in general for men and women, and guess what, weightlifting does the same.
@ricardomarquez1011 it is an unnecessary obsession to assign gender to an object. Going to train and use gym equipment is not an Olympic sport standard. As an object, it is a bar of a certain length and weight that anyone can use for purposes their physical capabilities allow. At a less important level of its description It can be a bar typically used in the male or female division of a specific sports body, but can be used in other ways too. Olympics use them as one tool in their gendered sports division. Big woop good for them
When my coach was helping me with snatches years ago I couldn’t hook grip a “men’s” bar so he had me switch to a “women’s” bar. I got my hook grip figured out and mostly use a the 20 kg bar. However, when cycling hang snatches I’ll grab the 15 kg bar. I’m a 5’6” dude. I got smaller hands it works. A barbell is a tool. In competition though men’s bar is the standard for men so that’s what gets used. Lady need to shut up.
I have normal sized hands but sausage fingers and can only properly hook grip 1 of the 3 45lb bars at the gym because it has a slightly smaller diameter. At the same time, I prefer benching or squating with the thicker bars.
I started out crossfit using a 10lb bar. Eventually progressed to a 20lb bar, then a 35lb bar, and eventually a 45lb bar. It's helpful to use lighter bars early on so you can use bumper plates to get the bar off the ground to help learn the movements.
@@danpolta8759 Calling it a 35lb bar instead of a 45lb bar is personally triggering because it's racist against functionally diverse people. So can you literally not? Just because I'm using a lighter bar doesn't mean it isn't 45lb. Check your abelist privilege
I wonder how the author of the article feels about suggested weights in workouts, like 95/65 lbs for thrusters. There's the men's weight and the women's weight. That must freak them out too then.
If there's anything which insinuates that women are less strong than men, it's prescribing them different weights for their workouts. Full equality at all times - give those women heavier weights! 💅💅💅💅
If you aren't a weightlifter, it doesn't really make sense to refer to them as mens/womens, but since the standard already exists for the sport that created them... its silly to be offended by it.
Nobody's offended except Zack. People just said that it's probably okay to just call the bars by their weight, and he decided to make a whole ass video about how wrong they are.
@@JackgarPrimethe women's bar was specifically invented for women to use in the sport of weightlifting. It's FOR women. That's why it's called the women's bar.
I don't have any problem calling them 15kg or 20kg barbells. Just like kgs used in kettlebells, plates, or dumbells. People are getting too sensitive about everything. Edit: I forgot to add that where I train sometimes we work out with a partner and sometimes is a girl that uses my 20kg barbell or sometimes I use a 15kg barbell. We don't have separate female/male weightlifting classes with mandatory gender-based equipment. I think the entire debate is pointless.
It's not even a debate. It's a bunch of people getting ass mad that someone calls a bar by its weight. It's as stupid as getting butthurt over someone lifting on pounds
@Khn90 You missed the point. The situation under discussion is that some women and a few men object to women's barbells being referred to accurately as women's barbells. Nobody's reporting on any men (or women) complaining about someone accurately describing a women's barbell as a 15 kg barbell or a men's barbell ad 20 kg.
This debate is pointless because the whole article and author is worthless and is a waste of time. This isn't something you can enforce and nothing about the specs actually changes. The author just has too much time on her hands and wanted to whine in the form of an article. No sane person cares about the transformers and nonbinary crowd's wants, everybody will still call it men's or women's and if some freak gets triggered over that, its their problem.
One of the greatest lessons I have learned in life, 'Only I am responsible for my emotions.' Not sure why the idea where one needs to be responsible for others emotions became an acceptable norm.
I'm a small guy with small hands, so I bought a women's bar so I can grip it better while working out at home and I don't feel emasculinated at all. Since buying the women's bar I have traded my Dodge truck in for a Chevy and am shopping for a fanny pack or possibly a purse to perfectly go with my new Chevy truck.
Ive had to explain this so many times to people. As you mentioned, the diameter of the bar is smaller as women on average have smaller hands, but then we have the metallurgy of the bar too. A woman's bar whips the same way a men's bar does, but is designed to do so at a lower weight, if they didn't, lifters would get buried as they receive the bar because all the force would transfer directly into the lifter, rather than the bar. As for Kettlebell sport, there are no gendered kettlebells, only specific weights for the women's classes vs mens, for example, the Long cycle is 32kg per hand for men vs 24kg for the women. Sport kettlebells have identical size and shape regardless of weight. Russian style kettlebells get bigger with thicker handles as they get heavier, simply as a function of the casting process. This article is yet another example of someone jumping the shark because they don't understand why things are the way they are. And in powerlifting, everyone uses the same bar because you don't need to hookgrip them for squat, bench or deadlift.
And if they'd done any preliminary research on weightlifting bars they wouldn't have even bothered posting the article because it's a non issue. Men and women are different thus their equipment is different. Imagine having such a comfortable life that this is where their advocacy has led them lol
I use a 15 kg (women’s) boneyard Rogue Oly bar that I got for $150. I like the bearings much better than bushings for the Snatch and the Clean & Jerk, and don’t prefer to spend ~$600 for a 20 kg (men’s) Oly bar.
Thanks for making this point. It’s dumb that it has to be made but since it does I’m glad you spoke and on it. Thank god we have a women’s bar, cuz there ain’t no way I’m trying to snatch with a men’s bar! We have plenty of men that I teach with a women’s bar. They usually progress pretty quickly to a men’s bar after learning the snatch. Some prefer it but they aren’t competitive weightlifters, just fitness CrossFitters. The ones that prefer it are usually closer to my height 5’3” Also, I think the Chalk Up article got it wrong- I don’t think they are a CrossFit Affiliated Gym. They are “community fitness” now?
Well said Zack. You said everything I was thinking when I read this article. I'll be honest that during coaching with larger classes I have always called the barbells by their weight, for identification purposes, as many newbies don't know that there is a difference. I saw in 100% of the times SOME men went for the 15kgs and ALL the women went for the 15kg barbells. It has always been a natural thing, never forced
I feel the point she is making isn't that calling 15kg/20kg bars women's/men's bars is discriminating. In the context of the sport weightlifting calling them women's/men's bars makes perfect sense do to them being gender standardized bars. But in the gym where people don't really care about the sport, it's just a 15kg/20kg bar where one is slightly smaller then the other. If a women has big hands she isn't doing anything wrong by using a 20kg bar, the same way a man with a smaller build shouldn't feel emasculated by using a 15kg bar. Do what is correct for your body, of course if you want to compete you have to use the standardized bars for your gender, but if you are just working on improving yourself do what works for you.
I agree. Not everything needs to be a battle in the culture wars. Calling them mens/womens barbell provides no information to the lifter. If you are told 10kg/15kg/20kg then it is easy to figure out the total weight lifted. You don't have to put an extra step in your mind which converts gender to weight lifting competion regulations women competition = 15kg bar, okay so now my lift is 70kg + 15kg. As for the point that Zack made saying that if men feel emasculated with him calling it a women's barbell it is their problem. Whilst it is ideal that weightlifting is about leaving ego at the door, people are not ideal; men have egos (I know I do) I would hate asking for the women's barbell vs asking for the men's and that might be detrimental to my workout.
@@johnheath5565 “Not everything needs to be a battle in the culture wars” …then stop writing asinine opinion pieces on it? Like Zack didn’t come out of nowhere to make this a thing. The author is the person challenging a 100-year-old standard and arguing against straw men. Point is, the author of the opinion piece is the one making it into an issue, not Zack. I just always hate this response of “don’t make this thing into an issue” coming from the people who, you guessed it, are the ones making it an issue.
@@JoeWild30 Couldn't help but notice you didn't actually talk about the topic of discussion, but were just making vague ad hominem attacks. Would you care to explain what your opinion is?
@@JoeWild30 Author is really capitalizing on the culture war that is gender politics for clicks and engagement, that is just standard nowadays unfortunately. The core of the article though is what @johnheath5565 was really referring to. Calling bars mens/womens really has no value in the general gym. Zack isn't making it an issues, but commenting on this stupid article with the exact way it wants you to is making it more of an issue than it has to be.
I love how people that virtue signal make everything worse. Next they will start to call them monster barbells and wimpy barbells and hope that solves the problem
I will say, I’ve seen many men/teen boys hinder their lifting because they are using a “men’s” barbell when they really should be lifting with a women’s bar because of the weight or hand size. Also, it really sucks how hard it is to find training bars in a smaller diameter.
Saying we shouldn't call them men's and women's barbells because barbells don't have genders is like saying we shouldn't call them men's and women's bathrooms because bathrooms don't have genders.
Damn Zack, no one in the fitness industry has the ability to explain certain aspects and concepts of weightlifting as well as you do..maybe Alexander Bromley comes close..Bravo my friend..👏👊💪
So I think there's some valid points hidden within the ideas presented in the article. I do think that making the proper form the main goal is more important than which bar you're using. I also think that there's a certain point to paying more attention to the weight than the terms for the bar used as well. At the end of the day the emphasis should be on safety and form. That doesn't mean that terms should have to change either.
That's not a defense for why the terms should stay the same either. This whole screed is like listening to a woman complain about how she insists on being allowed to call female friends her "girlfriends". Nobody was trying to take the word away from you. You're just acting persecuted to feel like a victim.
@@danpolta8759 but the difference between a mens and a womens barbell isnt just the weight? To replace mens and womens, you would have to describe weight, diameter and width of the barbell. Using mens a womens barbell (used for mens and womens competition respectively) is easier for most and not really a problem for most people.
I have a male friend in his 50s, who practices weightlifting recreationally, and he uses a women's bar exclusively due to short thumbs. A cheap women's bar can generally handle 120-140 kg, which is way more than a recreationally lifting man is going to C&J
Recreational I think is fair, but I do think a lot of men if they start before they are 40 years old, can go past 120 and probably 140 ( if they are on the bigger side) if they move from recreational to enthusiast. Past 40 years old when you're starting, idk for sure but I bet 140 would be great for an enthusiast starting that late. That being said if you only have one bar for the whole home gym, maybe a women's bar isn't the right choice, I'd need to check the weight rating for various bars to be sure, because 140kg is not a very heavy squat for even many recreational male lifters, but it is a very impressive amount to put overhead.
@@bobbybobman3073 A 15kg bar can hold 500kg. If they're more comfortable with a 15kg bar, I don't see a problem with sticking with it as long as they're not planning on competing.
The only time it truly matters is in sport, where divisions have their own specs (and obviously if you're training for a sport specificity in training). Outside of that it doesn't really matter. At the core I think you agree with the premise of the article. If someone needs to use a 20, 15, 10, or 5kg bar for the appropriate stimulus, they should. Even if someone wants to compete eventually, coaches need to meet them where they currently are at, and work towards whatever the sport they're pursuing requires.
Great Review of this topic Zack, For the Majority of gym-goers they should just see the bars as 15/20kg barbells. The biggest misunderstood part of this gendering is purely the standardization of bars for men and women due to their average physiology i.e. average size of hands, and further this IS important because of the "standard" part like you said people forget you need a something of a standard measure to ... measure.
I did some research, and it's probable that the writer's daughter can outlift her (51 year old) husband at least in some lifts. Her name is Celia Huddart, and she lifted 85kg and 107kg at 71kg weight in the 2023 usaw u25 womens division. Still no reason to change terminology.
Yes but give him some time to train and practice the techniques of those movements and hopefully the mother will shut her mouth. She sounds like a nuisance at the house
I think standards are useful. I cannot imagine the organizer switching back and forth during the competition between 15 and 20kg for lifters' preference...But I am a man, doing CF for fun. And I use a 15 kg bar for my small hands. To be honest, I did not know people judges me by the bar weight.
No human has ever been "gendered." We are "sexed." Nouns in some languages are "gendered." Humans are not "human nouns," we are "human beings." Humans are neither "binary" nor "non-binary." I suppose we could claim to be "unitary" or "global" or "holistic," but why? I suppose to indicate "not non-binary, not binary." Good grief! I think you're making assumptions about the family. I don't know this non-gendered female Crusader's husband or daughter, but I have no reason to doubt that if he's a small, sick, injured 65 year old man who's never trained, he can be outlifted by his large healthy uninjured 30 year old daughter who's trained for 20 years. It's evil that many federations have terminated rules that used to forbid men from competing in women's divisions. Remember that men who suffer with sex identity dysmorphia have a legal, natural place in men's divisions, competing with other men. The are NOT excluded from sport. As for bar name and choice, for Oly lifts at home I use a 15 pound York Aluma-Lite technique bar with a pair of 2.5 kg technique plates because I can start my workout without killing myself and keep loading low denomination bumpers (it's rated up to 150 pounds yes pounds not kgs) and change plates until I reach my Senior Citizen clean and jerk limit for the day. It's just more convenient than switching to the 20 kg bar. Why would I care what it's called? I call the Football Bar a Football Bar although it's neither a football nor a bar, because people know what I mean. I call my Log a Log although it's made of steel. Dang. People already know that a Women's Bar is designed for Women and is called a Women's Bar. Don't protest accuracy and truthfulness in language!
5:03 This conclusion is the result of toddler levels of critical thought. Getting support for this level of semantics requires whining. You really have to reach past reason.
A bar could be a trans bar, a 20kg bar that identifies as a 15kg bar. I know when I deadlift 210kg I tell people the barbell weight with plates identify as 500kg.
Odds of a young female crossfitter being able to outlift their potentially completely untrained father are not that small at all. She being able to do that when they both train with relatively similar intensity and frequency is highly unlikely.
Okay? So masters athletes should use the 15kg bar then because they can't train as hard and have less grip strength, right? Or do you only care about keeping the status quo
I feel like it should be based on weight class more? Hand size is the biggest issue, and heavier classes tend to have taller athletes with bigger hands...I really doubt that women over 5'8 struggle with gripping a men's bar more than a woman's than men under 5'3 or so would. Hand size really is everything. Also having messed with a women's barbell for pull work, it makes it harder when you have big hands, I have a 6'11 wingspan and very large hands and it's legit painful to hookgrip or double overhand 150kg+ compared to a men's bar.
But also if 4'11 Süleymanoğlu could use a men's barbell just fine, I feel like 95% of women could, just a larger learning curve I guess if you're learning hookgrip
This doesn't account for the grip strength difference in men and women discussed briefly in this video. A larger diameter implement would tax women's grip strength much more then a thinner bar. Think of the difference between a regular barbell and an elephant bar. The elephant bar taxes your grip much more because your hands are not fully wrapped into the bar, although this is an extreme example, the same logic should apply.
@datboi951 true, and this especially applies for novices and such...but at the same time a 55kg guy uses the same bar as Lasha, and the grip strength difference there is as massive as between a smaller guy and a larger woman despite the larger woman using a woman's bar.
If someone is too upset by the idea that there's "men's barbells" and "women's barbells" to lift with one they probably don't have the necessary mental tolerance to lift in general.
If you get this triggered by someone calling a 15kg bar a 15kg bar instead of a women's bar, you definitely don't have the mental fortitude needed to lift.
@@danpolta8759 not sure who's triggered? I'm not calling anyone out bro. Just saying that someone who says "I can't lift with that bar because it's offensive to call it a women's bar" probably isn't cut out for athletic success. Doesn't matter if that's a he/she/they/xer/whatever.
@@QQyoko Woah, calm down buddy. You can lift with the 20kg bar if you want to. I dunno why you're bringing up trans people, but nobody's stopping you from using your favorite bar. Just chill out, and do your lifts.
It’s insane that these things even need to be debated. We have clothes and shoes intended for pre-puberty children because those children typically have different shapes and proportions than the adults of their gender. You cannot simply shrink down adult clothing and expect it to fit correctly. Women have different shapes and proportions to men and as result sporting equipment needs some adjusting to be made ideal for the average person of each gender. It’s not called a women’s barbell because it’s lighter, it’s because it’s intended for adults with smaller hands which for the most part is going to be women. Yes, there are exceptions, some women can grip a male barbell fine, but most women around the world will struggle due to hand size. The opposite is true too but at the end of the day equipment is made for typical proportions and no the exceptions. We have enough empirical data collected from weightlifting events and training databases to prove that men, on average, are far stronger than women. The average intermediate male lifter lifts about twice as much as the average intermediate female lifter. We should note that strength means your ability to produce and resist force and the weight on the barbell can be a somewhat misleading indicator of total strength. The average man is taller and has a far greater range-of-motion on their lifters than the average female. Someone benching 225lbs for an 18 ROM is producing far more force than someone benching 225lbs for a 6” ROM. A 1980 study on force production of US National team Olympic lifters showed that the power difference between a 56kg and a 110kg lifter (both male) was 2.23 times despite the fact the 110kg lifter's best snatch and clean'&jerk was only about 1.4-1.5 times the lighter lifter's. The greater rom necessitates greater force production and thus demonstrates a higher level of strength. Hence in the real-world strength (force production) difference between men and women is actually a lot greater than just the 2 times figure we see from raw barbell numbers. Of course the strongest women will still outlift many men, even sometimes those not on gear, but they are exceptions and often in terms of reall world force production, their strength is well below the upper male pecentages.
I believe that hand size matters more than whatever other argument, unless you're too strong to the point that bars begin to bend and bounce because of tensile strenght, then it does really matter. But i wouldn't necessarily ask a 188 cm women to lift the 15kg bar because she is a woman, when my 160cm friend could have a stronger grip with the 15kg bar and people think he should lift with the 20kg bar. I actually think it's unfair that the 55kg men have to lift a bar much proportionally thicker than men who are 81-89 kg in weight, because men tend to remain lean untill the 96kg cat. While pretty much every women above 87 kg hold a lot of fat, so their hands still need the thinner bar.
If a coach forces an obviously weak man or woman to warm up with a standard barbell, that’s just bad coaching. If I have a younger/weaker athlete, they will use a 15/10kg barbell or maybe even 10/5kg depending on their strength.
2:18 35 pound and 45 pound weightlifting bars with actual needle bearings are valid, stop denying their existence! I think Tru Grit makes most of them these days, but there are the occasional random ones out there.
I think if you break down the argument into "if you're teaching a class match the bar to the persons ability/grip and strength in regards to the prescribed exercise" that's totally fine and a good point to find common ground. Whatever you want to call the bar I don't care. Implying that all men would get offended is stupid though (even though some decently do, or at least get a little insecure at first). If we're talking about competition that's a different story. weird side note: I love training snatches with the mens bar. makes switching back feel amazing
Random kettlebell comment: I consider myself a kettlebell enthusiast. The standard handle is 35mm for most competition kettlebells, but I actually like the 33mm handles as well (I wear L-sized gloves). Kettlebells also have a "hook grip" but the thumb wraps the index/middle fingers.
But how can you possibly talk about kettlebells without calling one a men's kettlebell and one a women's kettlebell? How will anyone know which ones are the bitch weights if you don't specify?
Not sure i agree, even in competition. There are two bars, which broadly cater to morphological differences between men and women, but weightlifting is also separated by weight class, which also has morphological differences (you don't have 5'1 super heavyweights and you don't have 6'9 lifters in the lightest weight classes). You could definitely argue that having a different bar standard per weight class for women and men would be unfeasible, which is fair, but it's also unreasonable to say a super heavy weight woman who's hands are bigger, shoulders broader, is taller and heavier than a 4'8 45kg male lifter, should use a lighter, thinner bar. Really the lifter should be able to choose which bar suits them best, or you could set a standard by weight class (maybe the 15kg bar suits men in the 45kg class and the 20kg bar suits the women in the superheavy class.
I workout at home in a limited space. Rather than break nearby glass sliding doors I use 15 kg bars as they are 300 mm shorter. Best thing about it is their is such a stigma in having "womens" 15 kg bars that no one wants them. So, they were 1/2 the price of the same brands equivalent 20 kg bar.
So me personally, in terms of the CF methodology, sure use whatever bar your heart desires (as long as safety allows). Also, in my classes I coach, I just say grab your bar, I don’t need to tell anyone to grab bars and if I have a new person, I’ll tell them to grab the light bars for training and teaching purposes. But yes, in terms of sport and competition, there has to be a standard and that requires the differentiation. For the non-binary part, that’s where I’ll just say whatever bar you can safely lift. At the end of the day; my big issue here is that this article talks about CrossFit class and equates it to the sport a little more than reality allows
@@edwindelic7085 you're responding to the wrong comment. All I did was answer answer how much thinner with diameter of the bar. Dl bar is 28mm, most are 28.5 or 29mm. Btw Albeit I didn't answer your question correctly. So 3mm to 4
U didnt ask me but as small-handed man i think they would definitely help. Sometimes I have trouble setting up my hook grip. But I wouldn't wanna use it because then I couldn't compare my lifts to other men. Besides, i cant compete with a womans barbell
Honestly, as a dude, I think the 25mm bar width would make more sense for a home gym *if* it was just more well supported. Personally I have hands just barely small enough that I don't feel like my hook grip is as strong as I'd like, so the 25mm bar would be helpful for that. On the other hand, a wider bar makes more sense for grip strength training. So, if 25mm bars had more aftermarket options, I could just get something like fat gripz, so based on what I'm training I could vary the thickness of the bar, rather than needing to buy multiple barbells. Unfortunately, the fat gripz seem to only be for 28mm bars. Also, women's bars are shorter, so for steinborns they won't work as well if you're taller, and obviously for taller folks you can't snatch as wide. Those things I don't like about women's bars.
I think for generalized weight lifting/body building - I think she's right. For any weight lifting requiring athletic bursts (like Olympic or CrossFit) - having gendered bars is not only more comfortable for grip, it's also a safety issue. You don't want to do any explosive movement with a bar you can't grip properly.
While I'm neither a Crossfit nor Olympic Weightlifting coach, I actually bought a 7,5kg Technique bar because many women that start out can't bench press 20 or even 15 kilo. I call that bar the women's bar sometimes, luckily no one complained yet... Did I mention it's pink?
Most WODs, as an average fitness male, I would be absolutely delighted to achieve the women's Rx level. There is no shame in that, it's what I'm capable of with my scale. Calling the scale women's or men's Rx is just a standard delineation that fits 90% of the population.
The way I see it the bar weight doesn't matter since you'll just add more weight to it. The real discussion is about the bar diameter and the way we categorize/label them. It seems that the average women's hand size is just a little bit below the average men's hand size, so as a matter of practicality a difference in standard bar diameter might make most sense, as well as whether athletes would or wouldn't be allowed to use either diameter bars. I certainly wouldn't care if the women's bar was newly standardized to be the same weight as men's, and if it were referred to as a non-gendered bar term. At the lower weight classes being able to hook grip the bar is certainly a concern in both women's and men's as athletes have been known to apply serious amounts of tape to make up for their hand size (which is technically illegal in weightlifting? not sure).
I feel like it’s always the people who aren’t in a high level at their sports who complain about gender differences. I am a powerlifter not a weightlifter but it’s the same either way. You take two athletes who weigh the same who are both at the same level of training (both never lifted in their lives or both world class athletes) who lifts more? Men. Duh. Besides from and outside perspective having a smaller thinner bar doesn’t seem like it’s made to ‘be demeaning to women’ but instead give them the best advantages the can based of their differing physical form (small hands). A woman who could lift say 90kg on a women’s bar might not be able to lift the same on a men’s bar because they can’t grip it properly. Are you going to tell them that they should swap to the heavier bar just so they can lift less? And in terms of the non binary ‘issue’ you compete with your sex, use the barbell of your sex, I thought the whole point was ‘male’ and ‘female’ is your sex and ‘man’ or ‘woman’ your gender. No one is excluded, use your brain.
The sport of olympic weightlifting is about personal peak performance. Therefor it would seem logical for outsiders from different sport that you use a bar that let you lift the most weight in a proper way. Tian tao for instance has smaller hands and has difficulty hook gripping the 20kg bar, it might be possible that he could lift more weight if he used a bar with a smaller diameter. All I am saying is that is sports where it is about personal performance it is natural to choose material that lets you excel. For instance, I come from a rowing background where you choose a boat which supports your weight optimally, so you have les water resistance and can set it up so you can make the most efficient stroke. The boat still has to fit certain standards (length, weight width etc.) So why is that not possible for weight lifting? It seems quite natural from my perspective.
Lol. Rules and laws are made to fit majority. We cannot accommodate all possible permutations and combinations. Take time and think about it. You cannot escape setting some sort of standard whichever way you look at it. Unless you just love chaos
@@ianmasinde7781 or course, rules are needed, which this sport has quite a lot of. However, it is no to hard to make two groups within a weight catgorie, one 25mm and one 28mm bar.
In kettlebell sports/Girevoy they use competition bells, where all weights are the same size, same dimensions, same placing of center of gravity. No differences between men and women in bell dimensions - only in the typically used weights in each competition (when men lift 24 kg, women lift 16 kg.....).
the whole "men's vs women's sports" for "men's vs women's barbells" or "men's and women's balls" seems like it's just repackaging the same "we call it that because we have called that and don't need to change it" stance which I am not very fond of. I can think of many ways to make it simpler like putting tape/coating the bars a certain color so your gym has designated red and blue bars (even with just a little tape) or whatever. does there need to be a distinction between them? yes. they're different bars and it matters for training purposes. does it need to be "men's and women's"? hardly. it has been that, and I personally have no problem with that as it is just a label, but were they labelled anything else (obviously within reason and not like Hitler vs Stalin bars pls) I would be okay with it. 28mm bar? good. pro bar? good. lighter bar? good. afab/amab bar? good. type A bar? type B bar? good. It is important to make a distinction and if that person doesn't like it being a "gender binary" distinction, they can have two diff colored racks and rack the bars on the red and blue racks even as to not alter the actual implement. if they want to be inclusive, go ahead. the only important thing is to keep the distinction and to know what bar you would be competing on. (think kabuki vs texas DL bars in PL or squat bar vs power bar, axle vs bar vs log vs just a crate of barrells or playboy bunnies in strongman lmao)
In strongman they consider the 8" and 10" logs to be women's logs. Not for "gendered" reasons but because women's necks, upper chest, and delts are too small to rack the log. But in most openweight women's comps where the women are, well, man-sized, the 12"+ logs are still used. The equipment is designed for the lifter, not the gender.
dont see how it is non-exclusive for non-binary folk. There is 2 options in that scenario: either the non-binary person wants to compete in weightlifting/cross-fit and they should just train with whatever bar fits the category they compete in or if they dont care for competing, then they can literally whatever the fuck they prefer because no one will stop you either way. What might happen is that your gains are slowed or halted because of an “improper” choice but it is a compromise that you would have to be willing to make
God forbid you accidentally buy your girl a shirt that she likes from the boys' section. That's just a slippery slope. Next thing you know she'll be having opinions and working as a plumber
Zack, your arguments against this are pretty bad. I think the ideas presented by the affiliate owner are dumb, but your arguments are equally pretty bad and aren't based on anything based "we've always done it that way".
if people are more worried about their sexual orientation than the progress they're making in the sport and are too caught up in these weird semantics then weightlifting rly isnt for them - humility is needed
Honestly, I've been in and around gyms for over 10 years, but not weightlifting gyms, and I never had any idea anyone called a 15kg bar a women's bar. Since getting a bit more familiar with weightlifting, I've found it is easier for me to hook grip a slimmer bar. So I use them sometimes, but this naming is nitpicking. Call them whatever you want, I just want to lift them 😅
I'm small-hand friendly 😉 I'm not against getting rid of gendered barbells but you explained really well why they are called as such, I just don't believe there couldn't be a better name to describe them. It ties into the trans athlete debate as well, males are just stronger on average than females. Sports are segregated for a reason. You can't use outliers as an example. This reminds me of the TRT exemption they had in the UFC 10 years ago, the allowed levels were astronomical because of an outlier, fighters would go on "therapy" and be within legal limits while going over their natural levels.
It may not be helpful to only refer to bars by weight... you can get shorter bars (international bars for example) that are 15kg but standard 28mm diameter, this would be non standard in Weightlifting... I guess there may be an argument to be super specific like "get a 15kg bar with a 25mm diameter shaft" but that takes a lot of energy when you need to give a quick instruction... I've certainly cycled snatches on a 25mm bar before, and called it a women's bar - but if I needed a 15kg bar and was training to be sport specific I'd aim to use one with a 28mm shaft... likewise if a female athlete wants to be sport specific they should drill pattern with 25mm? It's no good to turn up to a comp and be thrown by how the grip and flex feels...
Womens or mens barbell doesn't mean the barbell they have to use, its just means refers to the one they do use for competition. Its more of a designation then a description, of course either can use either outside of a weightlifting competition, but that's why they weigh that weight, that's what they are built for.
It's important that this came from a Crossfit affiliate context - NOT a competition context. Of course the competition divisions have standard weights for men and women, both in Weightlifting and Crossfit. But in an average crossfit box, there isn't really standardized competition, and you aren't likely to find "competitive athletes" in that sense - just average people trying to work out. So in that specific context - OUTSIDE of sport, you don't actually need the gender designation. Because (and I've seen it a thousand times), you'll have some average Joe who CANNOT put 50lbs over his head because he's not yet strong enough, flail about on the 45 lb bar with terrible form - when really he should be using the training bar. But because it's a "men's" bar, he won't put it down. Obviously, ideally people would leave ego at the door. But that's just not the case, people DONT do that.
Shush. No nuance allowed here. We're only talking about weightlifting, which is the only sport that exists except when we do the Crossfit Open for engagement.
In my box we call them 15kg- and 20kg-barbell. Right: The 15kg one is just thinner thus better to grab with smaller hands, no matter the gender. I have small hands, so I use the thinner one even for deadlifts where obviously 20kg are very light.
I kind of agree with this but from the perspective that bar diameter should be based on weight class. 70+ classes should be 20kg bars and under 65 should be 15kg. Hand size goes down for guys too, and it would standardize the jerk timing since lighter men can’t jerk the same way as heavier men weights. 160 responds way different than 140 on a 20kg bar
In all fairness: I'm a 51-year-old, 82-kg try-hard with 15 years experience as a Crossfitter, while one of my coaches just came in 15th in Riyadh in the women's 59s (and she had a bad day, too). (Me, I'm MAYBE 15th at my box on a good day.) I might as well come out of the closet here: she can out-snatch me by 20kg and out-c&j me by 10kg. Back squat, I can just about keep up. Still: It would be stupid for her to use a men's bar with her tiny hands. And there's not really any reason for me to use her bar, either - though it would be TOTALLY easier on long, grippy WODs. BTW, I'm tempted to say that maybe small males should also get to use a narrow/women's bar? Their hands can be pretty small. OTOH, we actually have a pocket sized male lifter at our gym. Not itl. elite , but he does good in national comps - and he can smoke Scheila easy. He seems to deal with the men's bar just fine, so .... shrug?
BTW, I think a valid takeaway for us dudes here is that, outside of a competitive, regulated context, there's nothing emasculating about using whatever equipment best fits your body type, strength and skill level. And if not using the term "women's bar" helps a few n00bs check their ego at the door, fine with me. (But I'd rather have to do with n00bs who are man enough to use women's equipment without feeling butthurt about it.)
8:30 it’s not that the client might be emasculated, it’s that other guys might be, which reduces coach control of the group class. In uni 15+ years ago I tended to lift with the women’s bars because the gym was machine heavy with the few men’s bars occupied at most times. I didn’t compete so matching comp bar didn’t matter, and by adding 10 more pounds to the women’s bar I could guarantee I’d always find an available bar in the busy campus gym. Harshes the vibe when gym bros interrupt every workout. Other guys would INSIST that I was GOING to hurt myself over time somehow with a 35lb bar because it’s “not designed for men.” The way coaches now describe bars to new lifters by diameter and weight based on their competition federation seems to have removed the basis for that kneejerk reaction from the average non competing gymbro.
Just another example of people getting bent out of shape from the use of certain adjectives to refer to specific objects. Their lives must be either so complete that they're bored or so empty that they've got nothing better to do.
Just as we shouldn’t gender exercises (Women should be encouraged to do Overhead Presses, Men should be encouraged to do glute focused lunge variations) we shouldn’t gender equipment through their title. I’m not a oly lifter, but I don’t see a problem dropping “women’s barbell” title while keeping the weight and diameter exactly the same.
Tbf if we didn't compete with these barbells, then her argument would make sense... why differentiate? Just have different sizes bars and use the one that fits you best. But also, outside of weightlifting/CrossFit circles, people don't really refer to them as "mens Vs women's" barbells. What's she's totally missing is that as soon as you compete with these barbells, you have to have to standardize the barbell to make it fair. When you do that, it just makes sense to assign the smaller barbell to the women's classes (you'd be screwing over female athletes if you didn't). And when you then train in a sport you're going to compete in, it makes sense to use the barbell you're going to use in competition in your training 🤷🏻♂️ It's not that deep guys
I use a 55 pound barbell because I have an extra Y Chromosome
Now we must question why there are different size log bars in Strongman for women and for men
Giga chad
I have 46 autosomes but still 5'7" goddamn it!
And when I lift I use multiple barbells at once because I use they/them pronouns 😂
@benschilling546 Seedman style!
Story time:
Once upon a time I was in the gym, and this tall swedish girl was using the last available barbell to do hip-fuckaround-thrusteroos or whatever. She finishes and then I see the bar looks like the women's bar and I ask her, "is that the women's bar?" And she says, "well I don't know if I'd call it THAT, but it is the 15kg bar" in a really offput and disgusted sarcastic type of way.
I was so confused with her demeanor, but then I realized that I'm in a cult AKA the weightlifting ingroup that nobody gives a shit about in the real world so of course she didn't realize that they use these for competition, so I said, "oh, no, women use 15kg bars in weightlifting while the men use 20kg".
She looks me up and down like I was made of sludge and she's like, "women can use WHATEVER bar they want to lift, dude!" and she stormed away before I could further explain. These other 2 girls looked at me and started sneering in the corner like I was a misogynist chauvinist pig trying to enforce women to use a 15kg bar like some fiat rule handed down by god when really I'm just a weightlifting nerd trying to figure out what bar she just finished using so I can train 😩
This misunderstanding lives rent free in my head daily even though it happened like 3 years ago.
Well we all understand that feminism isn't about equality, it's about dominant and those women are sneering because they want to enslave you even if they can't
I've been there bro, luckily the girl was a friend and I had time to explain
This is why I have a home gym
Scandinavian people 😒
Swedish people, lmao
The lack of things to do by these people impress me everytime.
It's their cry for attention.
Exactly
Why does the barbell need a gender? Its a weight
@@jeddafakee91 because sports have standards, soccer, volleyball, basketball, baseball/softball, ETC ETC ETC, all have different measurements for fields, balls, and equipment in general for men and women, and guess what, weightlifting does the same.
@ricardomarquez1011 it is an unnecessary obsession to assign gender to an object. Going to train and use gym equipment is not an Olympic sport standard. As an object, it is a bar of a certain length and weight that anyone can use for purposes their physical capabilities allow. At a less important level of its description It can be a bar typically used in the male or female division of a specific sports body, but can be used in other ways too. Olympics use them as one tool in their gendered sports division. Big woop good for them
When my coach was helping me with snatches years ago I couldn’t hook grip a “men’s” bar so he had me switch to a “women’s” bar. I got my hook grip figured out and mostly use a the 20 kg bar. However, when cycling hang snatches I’ll grab the 15 kg bar. I’m a 5’6” dude. I got smaller hands it works. A barbell is a tool. In competition though men’s bar is the standard for men so that’s what gets used. Lady need to shut up.
I have normal sized hands but sausage fingers and can only properly hook grip 1 of the 3 45lb bars at the gym because it has a slightly smaller diameter. At the same time, I prefer benching or squating with the thicker bars.
Literally nothing you've said counters her argument. In fact, you've made the point of it being more accurate to refer to the weight lol
@@DRDR3ADSA The weight of the bar has almost nothing to do with it, it is the diameter that is important.
I started out crossfit using a 10lb bar. Eventually progressed to a 20lb bar, then a 35lb bar, and eventually a 45lb bar. It's helpful to use lighter bars early on so you can use bumper plates to get the bar off the ground to help learn the movements.
How dare you call it a 35lb bar instead of a women's bar?! I'm very upset that you aren't separating your lifts by gender.
@@danpolta8759 Calling it a 35lb bar instead of a 45lb bar is personally triggering because it's racist against functionally diverse people. So can you literally not? Just because I'm using a lighter bar doesn't mean it isn't 45lb. Check your abelist privilege
"Very much most of the time men are going to have bigger hands and be stronger than women"
I've never been more called out in my life...
I wonder how the author of the article feels about suggested weights in workouts, like 95/65 lbs for thrusters. There's the men's weight and the women's weight. That must freak them out too then.
If there's anything which insinuates that women are less strong than men, it's prescribing them different weights for their workouts. Full equality at all times - give those women heavier weights! 💅💅💅💅
That’ll be next, most definitely.
If you aren't a weightlifter, it doesn't really make sense to refer to them as mens/womens, but since the standard already exists for the sport that created them... its silly to be offended by it.
Probably the only thing that needs to be said about this.
I would say it's silly that the sport has them separated like that in the first place, though.
Nobody's offended except Zack. People just said that it's probably okay to just call the bars by their weight, and he decided to make a whole ass video about how wrong they are.
except for the countless comments on here of people having others get mad at them for stating womens bar... @@danpolta8759
@@JackgarPrimethe women's bar was specifically invented for women to use in the sport of weightlifting. It's FOR women. That's why it's called the women's bar.
I think what would be really interesting is to hear a world class female athlete commenting regard this.
They will different opinions like any other group.
@@cheeks7050 Most would probably be reasonable and mentally stable to not care about gendered barbells
I don't have any problem calling them 15kg or 20kg barbells. Just like kgs used in kettlebells, plates, or dumbells. People are getting too sensitive about everything. Edit: I forgot to add that where I train sometimes we work out with a partner and sometimes is a girl that uses my 20kg barbell or sometimes I use a 15kg barbell. We don't have separate female/male weightlifting classes with mandatory gender-based equipment. I think the entire debate is pointless.
It's not even a debate. It's a bunch of people getting ass mad that someone calls a bar by its weight. It's as stupid as getting butthurt over someone lifting on pounds
you seem unfamiliar w/ running a competition and w/ the difference btwn male and female
I agree, but I HATE lifting in pounds!!!!@@danpolta8759
@Khn90 You missed the point. The situation under discussion is that some women and a few men object to women's barbells being referred to accurately as women's barbells. Nobody's reporting on any men (or women) complaining about someone accurately describing a women's barbell as a 15 kg barbell or a men's barbell ad 20 kg.
This debate is pointless because the whole article and author is worthless and is a waste of time. This isn't something you can enforce and nothing about the specs actually changes. The author just has too much time on her hands and wanted to whine in the form of an article. No sane person cares about the transformers and nonbinary crowd's wants, everybody will still call it men's or women's and if some freak gets triggered over that, its their problem.
They probably didnt even know about the diameter thats how ignorant they are....
One of the greatest lessons I have learned in life, 'Only I am responsible for my emotions.' Not sure why the idea where one needs to be responsible for others emotions became an acceptable norm.
I'm a small guy with small hands, so I bought a women's bar so I can grip it better while working out at home and I don't feel emasculinated at all. Since buying the women's bar I have traded my Dodge truck in for a Chevy and am shopping for a fanny pack or possibly a purse to perfectly go with my new Chevy truck.
Had me in the first half
and the second half
Ive had to explain this so many times to people.
As you mentioned, the diameter of the bar is smaller as women on average have smaller hands, but then we have the metallurgy of the bar too.
A woman's bar whips the same way a men's bar does, but is designed to do so at a lower weight, if they didn't, lifters would get buried as they receive the bar because all the force would transfer directly into the lifter, rather than the bar.
As for Kettlebell sport, there are no gendered kettlebells, only specific weights for the women's classes vs mens, for example, the Long cycle is 32kg per hand for men vs 24kg for the women. Sport kettlebells have identical size and shape regardless of weight.
Russian style kettlebells get bigger with thicker handles as they get heavier, simply as a function of the casting process.
This article is yet another example of someone jumping the shark because they don't understand why things are the way they are.
And in powerlifting, everyone uses the same bar because you don't need to hookgrip them for squat, bench or deadlift.
And if they'd done any preliminary research on weightlifting bars they wouldn't have even bothered posting the article because it's a non issue. Men and women are different thus their equipment is different. Imagine having such a comfortable life that this is where their advocacy has led them lol
I use a 15 kg (women’s) boneyard Rogue Oly bar that I got for $150. I like the bearings much better than bushings for the Snatch and the Clean & Jerk, and don’t prefer to spend ~$600 for a 20 kg (men’s) Oly bar.
Frankly that sounds like something I need to look into, that being said I need to check the weight capacity but that seems like a good budget hack.
Just dont ever compete or youre gonna run into problems
@FlyTour69 I use a 15 pound York aluminum technique bar I got for $80. I also use a Boneyard Pyrrhos I got later, for $325. Both work.
@@babayaga20000compete?! With my numbers? 😂
Thanks for making this point. It’s dumb that it has to be made but since it does I’m glad you spoke and on it.
Thank god we have a women’s bar, cuz there ain’t no way I’m trying to snatch with a men’s bar!
We have plenty of men that I teach with a women’s bar. They usually progress pretty quickly to a men’s bar after learning the snatch. Some prefer it but they aren’t competitive weightlifters, just fitness CrossFitters. The ones that prefer it are usually closer to my height 5’3”
Also, I think the Chalk Up article got it wrong- I don’t think they are a CrossFit Affiliated Gym. They are “community fitness” now?
Yea a lot of CrossFit gyms switched their names after the Glassman boomer incident on twitter lol
Nobody is banning the lighter bad you numpty lol
Well said Zack. You said everything I was thinking when I read this article. I'll be honest that during coaching with larger classes I have always called the barbells by their weight, for identification purposes, as many newbies don't know that there is a difference. I saw in 100% of the times SOME men went for the 15kgs and ALL the women went for the 15kg barbells. It has always been a natural thing, never forced
I feel the point she is making isn't that calling 15kg/20kg bars women's/men's bars is discriminating. In the context of the sport weightlifting calling them women's/men's bars makes perfect sense do to them being gender standardized bars. But in the gym where people don't really care about the sport, it's just a 15kg/20kg bar where one is slightly smaller then the other. If a women has big hands she isn't doing anything wrong by using a 20kg bar, the same way a man with a smaller build shouldn't feel emasculated by using a 15kg bar. Do what is correct for your body, of course if you want to compete you have to use the standardized bars for your gender, but if you are just working on improving yourself do what works for you.
I agree. Not everything needs to be a battle in the culture wars.
Calling them mens/womens barbell provides no information to the lifter.
If you are told 10kg/15kg/20kg then it is easy to figure out the total weight lifted. You don't have to put an extra step in your mind which converts gender to weight lifting competion regulations
women competition = 15kg bar, okay so now my lift is 70kg + 15kg.
As for the point that Zack made saying that if men feel emasculated with him calling it a women's barbell it is their problem.
Whilst it is ideal that weightlifting is about leaving ego at the door, people are not ideal; men have egos (I know I do) I would hate asking for the women's barbell vs asking for the men's and that might be detrimental to my workout.
@@johnheath5565 “Not everything needs to be a battle in the culture wars”
…then stop writing asinine opinion pieces on it? Like Zack didn’t come out of nowhere to make this a thing. The author is the person challenging a 100-year-old standard and arguing against straw men.
Point is, the author of the opinion piece is the one making it into an issue, not Zack. I just always hate this response of “don’t make this thing into an issue” coming from the people who, you guessed it, are the ones making it an issue.
@@JoeWild30 Couldn't help but notice you didn't actually talk about the topic of discussion, but were just making vague ad hominem attacks. Would you care to explain what your opinion is?
@@johnheath5565 but weight isnt the most important difference between mens and womens barbells?
@@JoeWild30 Author is really capitalizing on the culture war that is gender politics for clicks and engagement, that is just standard nowadays unfortunately.
The core of the article though is what @johnheath5565 was really referring to. Calling bars mens/womens really has no value in the general gym.
Zack isn't making it an issues, but commenting on this stupid article with the exact way it wants you to is making it more of an issue than it has to be.
I love how people that virtue signal make everything worse. Next they will start to call them monster barbells and wimpy barbells and hope that solves the problem
Oh so you're just going to appropriate monsters and wimps into your perceived reality?!?! Bigot.
I will say, I’ve seen many men/teen boys hinder their lifting because they are using a “men’s” barbell when they really should be lifting with a women’s bar because of the weight or hand size. Also, it really sucks how hard it is to find training bars in a smaller diameter.
EXACTLY.
Saying we shouldn't call them men's and women's barbells because barbells don't have genders is like saying we shouldn't call them men's and women's bathrooms because bathrooms don't have genders.
Damn Zack, no one in the fitness industry has the ability to explain certain aspects and concepts of weightlifting as well as you do..maybe Alexander Bromley comes close..Bravo my friend..👏👊💪
So I think there's some valid points hidden within the ideas presented in the article. I do think that making the proper form the main goal is more important than which bar you're using. I also think that there's a certain point to paying more attention to the weight than the terms for the bar used as well. At the end of the day the emphasis should be on safety and form. That doesn't mean that terms should have to change either.
That's not a defense for why the terms should stay the same either. This whole screed is like listening to a woman complain about how she insists on being allowed to call female friends her "girlfriends". Nobody was trying to take the word away from you. You're just acting persecuted to feel like a victim.
@@danpolta8759 but the difference between a mens and a womens barbell isnt just the weight? To replace mens and womens, you would have to describe weight, diameter and width of the barbell. Using mens a womens barbell (used for mens and womens competition respectively) is easier for most and not really a problem for most people.
I have a male friend in his 50s, who practices weightlifting recreationally, and he uses a women's bar exclusively due to short thumbs. A cheap women's bar can generally handle 120-140 kg, which is way more than a recreationally lifting man is going to C&J
Recreational I think is fair, but I do think a lot of men if they start before they are 40 years old, can go past 120 and probably 140 ( if they are on the bigger side) if they move from recreational to enthusiast. Past 40 years old when you're starting, idk for sure but I bet 140 would be great for an enthusiast starting that late. That being said if you only have one bar for the whole home gym, maybe a women's bar isn't the right choice, I'd need to check the weight rating for various bars to be sure, because 140kg is not a very heavy squat for even many recreational male lifters, but it is a very impressive amount to put overhead.
@@bobbybobman3073 A 15kg bar can hold 500kg. If they're more comfortable with a 15kg bar, I don't see a problem with sticking with it as long as they're not planning on competing.
@bobbybobman3073
I think that if there's only one bar for the home gym a women's bar would be more inviting for the wife and kids.
@@bobbybobman3073 140 kg is a VERY heavy C&J, even heavier snatch for a recriational weightlifter
@@bobbybobman3073 I need to ask, how much do you squat if you think 140 is nothing?
The only time it truly matters is in sport, where divisions have their own specs (and obviously if you're training for a sport specificity in training). Outside of that it doesn't really matter. At the core I think you agree with the premise of the article. If someone needs to use a 20, 15, 10, or 5kg bar for the appropriate stimulus, they should. Even if someone wants to compete eventually, coaches need to meet them where they currently are at, and work towards whatever the sport they're pursuing requires.
YES the diamater of the bar for proper grip is one of the reasons why these barbells were invented in the first place
Great Review of this topic Zack, For the Majority of gym-goers they should just see the bars as 15/20kg barbells. The biggest misunderstood part of this gendering is purely the standardization of bars for men and women due to their average physiology i.e. average size of hands, and further this IS important because of the "standard" part like you said people forget you need a something of a standard measure to ... measure.
Wokeism......the gift that keeps on giving!
We're doomed
The diameter of a bar has almost nothing to do with your gender. CrossFit box owner is right.
I did some research, and it's probable that the writer's daughter can outlift her (51 year old) husband at least in some lifts. Her name is Celia Huddart, and she lifted 85kg and 107kg at 71kg weight in the 2023 usaw u25 womens division. Still no reason to change terminology.
Yes but give him some time to train and practice the techniques of those movements and hopefully the mother will shut her mouth. She sounds like a nuisance at the house
I think standards are useful. I cannot imagine the organizer switching back and forth during the competition between 15 and 20kg for lifters' preference...But I am a man, doing CF for fun. And I use a 15 kg bar for my small hands. To be honest, I did not know people judges me by the bar weight.
No human has ever been "gendered." We are "sexed." Nouns in some languages are "gendered." Humans are not "human nouns," we are "human beings."
Humans are neither "binary" nor "non-binary." I suppose we could claim to be "unitary" or "global" or "holistic," but why? I suppose to indicate "not non-binary, not binary." Good grief!
I think you're making assumptions about the family. I don't know this non-gendered female Crusader's husband or daughter, but I have no reason to doubt that if he's a small, sick, injured 65 year old man who's never trained, he can be outlifted by his large healthy uninjured 30 year old daughter who's trained for 20 years.
It's evil that many federations have terminated rules that used to forbid men from competing in women's divisions. Remember that men who suffer with sex identity dysmorphia have a legal, natural place in men's divisions, competing with other men. The are NOT excluded from sport.
As for bar name and choice, for Oly lifts at home I use a 15 pound York Aluma-Lite technique bar with a pair of 2.5 kg technique plates because I can start my workout without killing myself and keep loading low denomination bumpers (it's rated up to 150 pounds yes pounds not kgs) and change plates until I reach my Senior Citizen clean and jerk limit for the day. It's just more convenient than switching to the 20 kg bar. Why would I care what it's called?
I call the Football Bar a Football Bar although it's neither a football nor a bar, because people know what I mean. I call my Log a Log although it's made of steel. Dang. People already know that a Women's Bar is designed for Women and is called a Women's Bar. Don't protest accuracy and truthfulness in language!
Very good video video. Good context!
5:03 This conclusion is the result of toddler levels of critical thought. Getting support for this level of semantics requires whining. You really have to reach past reason.
A bar could be a trans bar, a 20kg bar that identifies as a 15kg bar. I know when I deadlift 210kg I tell people the barbell weight with plates identify as 500kg.
Odds of a young female crossfitter being able to outlift their potentially completely untrained father are not that small at all. She being able to do that when they both train with relatively similar intensity and frequency is highly unlikely.
Okay? So masters athletes should use the 15kg bar then because they can't train as hard and have less grip strength, right? Or do you only care about keeping the status quo
I feel like it should be based on weight class more? Hand size is the biggest issue, and heavier classes tend to have taller athletes with bigger hands...I really doubt that women over 5'8 struggle with gripping a men's bar more than a woman's than men under 5'3 or so would. Hand size really is everything.
Also having messed with a women's barbell for pull work, it makes it harder when you have big hands, I have a 6'11 wingspan and very large hands and it's legit painful to hookgrip or double overhand 150kg+ compared to a men's bar.
But also if 4'11 Süleymanoğlu could use a men's barbell just fine, I feel like 95% of women could, just a larger learning curve I guess if you're learning hookgrip
This doesn't account for the grip strength difference in men and women discussed briefly in this video. A larger diameter implement would tax women's grip strength much more then a thinner bar. Think of the difference between a regular barbell and an elephant bar. The elephant bar taxes your grip much more because your hands are not fully wrapped into the bar, although this is an extreme example, the same logic should apply.
6’11” wingspan… Can you dunk on a 10’ rim?
@datboi951 true, and this especially applies for novices and such...but at the same time a 55kg guy uses the same bar as Lasha, and the grip strength difference there is as massive as between a smaller guy and a larger woman despite the larger woman using a woman's bar.
@steve7louis yeah, I'm also 6'6 so I don't have to jump that high, I can already touch the net with my standing reach
love these vids man, but I miss the lifting vlogs
If someone is too upset by the idea that there's "men's barbells" and "women's barbells" to lift with one they probably don't have the necessary mental tolerance to lift in general.
If you get this triggered by someone calling a 15kg bar a 15kg bar instead of a women's bar, you definitely don't have the mental fortitude needed to lift.
@@danpolta8759 not sure who's triggered? I'm not calling anyone out bro. Just saying that someone who says "I can't lift with that bar because it's offensive to call it a women's bar" probably isn't cut out for athletic success. Doesn't matter if that's a he/she/they/xer/whatever.
@@QQyoko Woah, calm down buddy. You can lift with the 20kg bar if you want to. I dunno why you're bringing up trans people, but nobody's stopping you from using your favorite bar. Just chill out, and do your lifts.
It’s insane that these things even need to be debated. We have clothes and shoes intended for pre-puberty children because those children typically have different shapes and proportions than the adults of their gender. You cannot simply shrink down adult clothing and expect it to fit correctly. Women have different shapes and proportions to men and as result sporting equipment needs some adjusting to be made ideal for the average person of each gender. It’s not called a women’s barbell because it’s lighter, it’s because it’s intended for adults with smaller hands which for the most part is going to be women. Yes, there are exceptions, some women can grip a male barbell fine, but most women around the world will struggle due to hand size. The opposite is true too but at the end of the day equipment is made for typical proportions and no the exceptions.
We have enough empirical data collected from weightlifting events and training databases to prove that men, on average, are far stronger than women. The average intermediate male lifter lifts about twice as much as the average intermediate female lifter. We should note that strength means your ability to produce and resist force and the weight on the barbell can be a somewhat misleading indicator of total strength. The average man is taller and has a far greater range-of-motion on their lifters than the average female. Someone benching 225lbs for an 18 ROM is producing far more force than someone benching 225lbs for a 6” ROM. A 1980 study on force production of US National team Olympic lifters showed that the power difference between a 56kg and a 110kg lifter (both male) was 2.23 times despite the fact the 110kg lifter's best snatch and clean'&jerk was only about 1.4-1.5 times the lighter lifter's. The greater rom necessitates greater force production and thus demonstrates a higher level of strength. Hence in the real-world strength (force production) difference between men and women is actually a lot greater than just the 2 times figure we see from raw barbell numbers. Of course the strongest women will still outlift many men, even sometimes those not on gear, but they are exceptions and often in terms of reall world force production, their strength is well below the upper male pecentages.
I believe that hand size matters more than whatever other argument, unless you're too strong to the point that bars begin to bend and bounce because of tensile strenght, then it does really matter. But i wouldn't necessarily ask a 188 cm women to lift the 15kg bar because she is a woman, when my 160cm friend could have a stronger grip with the 15kg bar and people think he should lift with the 20kg bar.
I actually think it's unfair that the 55kg men have to lift a bar much proportionally thicker than men who are 81-89 kg in weight, because men tend to remain lean untill the 96kg cat. While pretty much every women above 87 kg hold a lot of fat, so their hands still need the thinner bar.
Let me guess, the author has never set foot inside a gym.
If a coach forces an obviously weak man or woman to warm up with a standard barbell, that’s just bad coaching.
If I have a younger/weaker athlete, they will use a 15/10kg barbell or maybe even 10/5kg depending on their strength.
2:18 35 pound and 45 pound weightlifting bars with actual needle bearings are valid, stop denying their existence! I think Tru Grit makes most of them these days, but there are the occasional random ones out there.
I think if you break down the argument into "if you're teaching a class match the bar to the persons ability/grip and strength in regards to the prescribed exercise" that's totally fine and a good point to find common ground. Whatever you want to call the bar I don't care. Implying that all men would get offended is stupid though (even though some decently do, or at least get a little insecure at first). If we're talking about competition that's a different story. weird side note: I love training snatches with the mens bar. makes switching back feel amazing
Why do we suddenly have to change things that have been in effect for over 50 years without issue
cause it was without issue for those who had no issue. It's more or less a survivorship bias.
Why does it matter? Doing things just because they've been done a certain way isn't a good reason to continue.
Good question. Why is there so much controversy over the press out rule? Change is always bad, right?
It's 2023 if we aren't progressing we are stagnating. Sorry, that's the rules.
Random kettlebell comment: I consider myself a kettlebell enthusiast. The standard handle is 35mm for most competition kettlebells, but I actually like the 33mm handles as well (I wear L-sized gloves). Kettlebells also have a "hook grip" but the thumb wraps the index/middle fingers.
But how can you possibly talk about kettlebells without calling one a men's kettlebell and one a women's kettlebell? How will anyone know which ones are the bitch weights if you don't specify?
Not sure i agree, even in competition. There are two bars, which broadly cater to morphological differences between men and women, but weightlifting is also separated by weight class, which also has morphological differences (you don't have 5'1 super heavyweights and you don't have 6'9 lifters in the lightest weight classes). You could definitely argue that having a different bar standard per weight class for women and men would be unfeasible, which is fair, but it's also unreasonable to say a super heavy weight woman who's hands are bigger, shoulders broader, is taller and heavier than a 4'8 45kg male lifter, should use a lighter, thinner bar. Really the lifter should be able to choose which bar suits them best, or you could set a standard by weight class (maybe the 15kg bar suits men in the 45kg class and the 20kg bar suits the women in the superheavy class.
One of the running funnies in our gym is ‘Women’s RX is still RX’ 🎉😊
I workout at home in a limited space. Rather than break nearby glass sliding doors I use 15 kg bars as they are 300 mm shorter. Best thing about it is their is such a stigma in having "womens" 15 kg bars that no one wants them. So, they were 1/2 the price of the same brands equivalent 20 kg bar.
So me personally, in terms of the CF methodology, sure use whatever bar your heart desires (as long as safety allows). Also, in my classes I coach, I just say grab your bar, I don’t need to tell anyone to grab bars and if I have a new person, I’ll tell them to grab the light bars for training and teaching purposes.
But yes, in terms of sport and competition, there has to be a standard and that requires the differentiation.
For the non-binary part, that’s where I’ll just say whatever bar you can safely lift.
At the end of the day; my big issue here is that this article talks about CrossFit class and equates it to the sport a little more than reality allows
Eh...nothing burger. Life is too short.
just call the barbell by the weight and still keep the gendered standard in official competition
This is exactly what you would expect people who have 200+ dollars to spend on a gym membership per month to argue about
If an affiliate gym wants to go against regulations of the sport, they’re welcome to give up their affiliate status.
Grab the “thinner bar”. Done.
No, it's a women's bar. We won't change well-established, perfectly reasonable language to cater to fragile snowflakes.
How much thinner?
@@edwindelic7085 looked it up. they are tiny LOL 25mm.
@@fly1ngpapaya
I know, my point was a "thinner bar" is not a standard but a woman bar is.
🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
@@edwindelic7085 you're responding to the wrong comment. All I did was answer answer how much thinner with diameter of the bar.
Dl bar is 28mm, most are 28.5 or 29mm. Btw
Albeit I didn't answer your question correctly. So 3mm to 4
Do you think there is a call for allowing the lighter men’s category to use the women’s bar? Could this result in great weight lifted?
U didnt ask me but as small-handed man i think they would definitely help. Sometimes I have trouble setting up my hook grip. But I wouldn't wanna use it because then I couldn't compare my lifts to other men. Besides, i cant compete with a womans barbell
I think as this craziness enters more into our world it’s going to radicalize many of us.
Honestly, as a dude, I think the 25mm bar width would make more sense for a home gym *if* it was just more well supported. Personally I have hands just barely small enough that I don't feel like my hook grip is as strong as I'd like, so the 25mm bar would be helpful for that. On the other hand, a wider bar makes more sense for grip strength training. So, if 25mm bars had more aftermarket options, I could just get something like fat gripz, so based on what I'm training I could vary the thickness of the bar, rather than needing to buy multiple barbells. Unfortunately, the fat gripz seem to only be for 28mm bars.
Also, women's bars are shorter, so for steinborns they won't work as well if you're taller, and obviously for taller folks you can't snatch as wide. Those things I don't like about women's bars.
All this boils down to there is a difference between men and women.
What's the over/under on TH-cam suspending your account for that comment? 😂
Society is seriously heading down a slippery slope, please don’t let crossfit do the same thing
I think for generalized weight lifting/body building - I think she's right. For any weight lifting requiring athletic bursts (like Olympic or CrossFit) - having gendered bars is not only more comfortable for grip, it's also a safety issue. You don't want to do any explosive movement with a bar you can't grip properly.
While I'm neither a Crossfit nor Olympic Weightlifting coach, I actually bought a 7,5kg Technique bar because many women that start out can't bench press 20 or even 15 kilo.
I call that bar the women's bar sometimes, luckily no one complained yet... Did I mention it's pink?
How is this even a debate? People will make an argument out of anything.
Most WODs, as an average fitness male, I would be absolutely delighted to achieve the women's Rx level. There is no shame in that, it's what I'm capable of with my scale. Calling the scale women's or men's Rx is just a standard delineation that fits 90% of the population.
I knew the woke mob was going to get offended by our precious barbells sooner or later 😂
I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
The way I see it the bar weight doesn't matter since you'll just add more weight to it. The real discussion is about the bar diameter and the way we categorize/label them. It seems that the average women's hand size is just a little bit below the average men's hand size, so as a matter of practicality a difference in standard bar diameter might make most sense, as well as whether athletes would or wouldn't be allowed to use either diameter bars. I certainly wouldn't care if the women's bar was newly standardized to be the same weight as men's, and if it were referred to as a non-gendered bar term. At the lower weight classes being able to hook grip the bar is certainly a concern in both women's and men's as athletes have been known to apply serious amounts of tape to make up for their hand size (which is technically illegal in weightlifting? not sure).
I feel like it’s always the people who aren’t in a high level at their sports who complain about gender differences. I am a powerlifter not a weightlifter but it’s the same either way. You take two athletes who weigh the same who are both at the same level of training (both never lifted in their lives or both world class athletes) who lifts more? Men. Duh. Besides from and outside perspective having a smaller thinner bar doesn’t seem like it’s made to ‘be demeaning to women’ but instead give them the best advantages the can based of their differing physical form (small hands). A woman who could lift say 90kg on a women’s bar might not be able to lift the same on a men’s bar because they can’t grip it properly. Are you going to tell them that they should swap to the heavier bar just so they can lift less? And in terms of the non binary ‘issue’ you compete with your sex, use the barbell of your sex, I thought the whole point was ‘male’ and ‘female’ is your sex and ‘man’ or ‘woman’ your gender. No one is excluded, use your brain.
11:21 I have a non binary barbell. Its just as real as the category
What are it's pronouns?
Bro always has the dopest green screen backgrounds. Starfield is the move right now
The sport of olympic weightlifting is about personal peak performance. Therefor it would seem logical for outsiders from different sport that you use a bar that let you lift the most weight in a proper way. Tian tao for instance has smaller hands and has difficulty hook gripping the 20kg bar, it might be possible that he could lift more weight if he used a bar with a smaller diameter. All I am saying is that is sports where it is about personal performance it is natural to choose material that lets you excel. For instance, I come from a rowing background where you choose a boat which supports your weight optimally, so you have les water resistance and can set it up so you can make the most efficient stroke. The boat still has to fit certain standards (length, weight width etc.) So why is that not possible for weight lifting? It seems quite natural from my perspective.
Lol. Rules and laws are made to fit majority. We cannot accommodate all possible permutations and combinations. Take time and think about it. You cannot escape setting some sort of standard whichever way you look at it. Unless you just love chaos
@@ianmasinde7781 or course, rules are needed, which this sport has quite a lot of. However, it is no to hard to make two groups within a weight catgorie, one 25mm and one 28mm bar.
Your most valid reference is the diameter of the bar has to be smaller because a majority of the female population has smaller hands.
In kettlebell sports/Girevoy they use competition bells, where all weights are the same size, same dimensions, same placing of center of gravity. No differences between men and women in bell dimensions - only in the typically used weights in each competition (when men lift 24 kg, women lift 16 kg.....).
the whole "men's vs women's sports" for "men's vs women's barbells" or "men's and women's balls" seems like it's just repackaging the same "we call it that because we have called that and don't need to change it" stance which I am not very fond of. I can think of many ways to make it simpler like putting tape/coating the bars a certain color so your gym has designated red and blue bars (even with just a little tape) or whatever. does there need to be a distinction between them? yes. they're different bars and it matters for training purposes. does it need to be "men's and women's"? hardly. it has been that, and I personally have no problem with that as it is just a label, but were they labelled anything else (obviously within reason and not like Hitler vs Stalin bars pls) I would be okay with it. 28mm bar? good. pro bar? good. lighter bar? good. afab/amab bar? good. type A bar? type B bar? good. It is important to make a distinction and if that person doesn't like it being a "gender binary" distinction, they can have two diff colored racks and rack the bars on the red and blue racks even as to not alter the actual implement. if they want to be inclusive, go ahead. the only important thing is to keep the distinction and to know what bar you would be competing on. (think kabuki vs texas DL bars in PL or squat bar vs power bar, axle vs bar vs log vs just a crate of barrells or playboy bunnies in strongman lmao)
call it what you want. I'm all for that. But policing people who notice generalizations is kinda pathetic. This think piece is a waste of time.
In Southeast Asia we use they/them omnisexual steel-kin bars.
USA got some catching up to do.
In strongman they consider the 8" and 10" logs to be women's logs. Not for "gendered" reasons but because women's necks, upper chest, and delts are too small to rack the log. But in most openweight women's comps where the women are, well, man-sized, the 12"+ logs are still used. The equipment is designed for the lifter, not the gender.
dont see how it is non-exclusive for non-binary folk. There is 2 options in that scenario: either the non-binary person wants to compete in weightlifting/cross-fit and they should just train with whatever bar fits the category they compete in or if they dont care for competing, then they can literally whatever the fuck they prefer because no one will stop you either way. What might happen is that your gains are slowed or halted because of an “improper” choice but it is a compromise that you would have to be willing to make
Coming soon: The gender signs in the Target clothing departments from men/women/boys/girls to you/them/young they/young you. Good luck.
God forbid you accidentally buy your girl a shirt that she likes from the boys' section. That's just a slippery slope. Next thing you know she'll be having opinions and working as a plumber
@@danpolta8759 look up phalloplasty and then tell me if supporting this insanity is a good idea
If the bar is comfortable and practical for the exercise, who cares?
My max snatch is 100 kg but with the women's bar
Zack, your arguments against this are pretty bad. I think the ideas presented by the affiliate owner are dumb, but your arguments are equally pretty bad and aren't based on anything based "we've always done it that way".
and he doesnt even know
we havent always done it this way
Nobody seems mad about Men's and Women's basketballs. Barbells are the same. There's standardized Junior basketballs too.
if people are more worried about their sexual orientation than the progress they're making in the sport and are too caught up in these weird semantics then weightlifting rly isnt for them - humility is needed
I have never heard someone thinks it's an issue we use men/women barbell...they literally just created a "problem"
Honestly, I've been in and around gyms for over 10 years, but not weightlifting gyms, and I never had any idea anyone called a 15kg bar a women's bar. Since getting a bit more familiar with weightlifting, I've found it is easier for me to hook grip a slimmer bar. So I use them sometimes, but this naming is nitpicking. Call them whatever you want, I just want to lift them 😅
I'm small-hand friendly 😉 I'm not against getting rid of gendered barbells but you explained really well why they are called as such, I just don't believe there couldn't be a better name to describe them. It ties into the trans athlete debate as well, males are just stronger on average than females. Sports are segregated for a reason. You can't use outliers as an example. This reminds me of the TRT exemption they had in the UFC 10 years ago, the allowed levels were astronomical because of an outlier, fighters would go on "therapy" and be within legal limits while going over their natural levels.
As a man with smaller hands than most women I for one would just love more 15 kg barbells in commercial gyms.
It may not be helpful to only refer to bars by weight... you can get shorter bars (international bars for example) that are 15kg but standard 28mm diameter, this would be non standard in Weightlifting...
I guess there may be an argument to be super specific like "get a 15kg bar with a 25mm diameter shaft" but that takes a lot of energy when you need to give a quick instruction...
I've certainly cycled snatches on a 25mm bar before, and called it a women's bar - but if I needed a 15kg bar and was training to be sport specific I'd aim to use one with a 28mm shaft... likewise if a female athlete wants to be sport specific they should drill pattern with 25mm?
It's no good to turn up to a comp and be thrown by how the grip and flex feels...
Womens or mens barbell doesn't mean the barbell they have to use, its just means refers to the one they do use for competition. Its more of a designation then a description, of course either can use either outside of a weightlifting competition, but that's why they weigh that weight, that's what they are built for.
It's important that this came from a Crossfit affiliate context - NOT a competition context. Of course the competition divisions have standard weights for men and women, both in Weightlifting and Crossfit. But in an average crossfit box, there isn't really standardized competition, and you aren't likely to find "competitive athletes" in that sense - just average people trying to work out. So in that specific context - OUTSIDE of sport, you don't actually need the gender designation. Because (and I've seen it a thousand times), you'll have some average Joe who CANNOT put 50lbs over his head because he's not yet strong enough, flail about on the 45 lb bar with terrible form - when really he should be using the training bar. But because it's a "men's" bar, he won't put it down. Obviously, ideally people would leave ego at the door. But that's just not the case, people DONT do that.
Shush. No nuance allowed here. We're only talking about weightlifting, which is the only sport that exists except when we do the Crossfit Open for engagement.
In my box we call them 15kg- and 20kg-barbell. Right: The 15kg one is just thinner thus better to grab with smaller hands, no matter the gender. I have small hands, so I use the thinner one even for deadlifts where obviously 20kg are very light.
I kind of agree with this but from the perspective that bar diameter should be based on weight class. 70+ classes should be 20kg bars and under 65 should be 15kg. Hand size goes down for guys too, and it would standardize the jerk timing since lighter men can’t jerk the same way as heavier men weights. 160 responds way different than 140 on a 20kg bar
I've never heard someone in the gym calling them men and women's, since it only matters if youre actually doing the sport right
Most of this person's concerns can be addressed by one of the most wonderful principles of weightlifting: 1 kg is 1 kg.
In all fairness: I'm a 51-year-old, 82-kg try-hard with 15 years experience as a Crossfitter, while one of my coaches just came in 15th in Riyadh in the women's 59s (and she had a bad day, too). (Me, I'm MAYBE 15th at my box on a good day.) I might as well come out of the closet here: she can out-snatch me by 20kg and out-c&j me by 10kg. Back squat, I can just about keep up.
Still: It would be stupid for her to use a men's bar with her tiny hands. And there's not really any reason for me to use her bar, either - though it would be TOTALLY easier on long, grippy WODs.
BTW, I'm tempted to say that maybe small males should also get to use a narrow/women's bar? Their hands can be pretty small.
OTOH, we actually have a pocket sized male lifter at our gym. Not itl. elite , but he does good in national comps - and he can smoke Scheila easy. He seems to deal with the men's bar just fine, so .... shrug?
BTW, I think a valid takeaway for us dudes here is that, outside of a competitive, regulated context, there's nothing emasculating about using whatever equipment best fits your body type, strength and skill level. And if not using the term "women's bar" helps a few n00bs check their ego at the door, fine with me. (But I'd rather have to do with n00bs who are man enough to use women's equipment without feeling butthurt about it.)
8:30 it’s not that the client might be emasculated, it’s that other guys might be, which reduces coach control of the group class. In uni 15+ years ago I tended to lift with the women’s bars because the gym was machine heavy with the few men’s bars occupied at most times. I didn’t compete so matching comp bar didn’t matter, and by adding 10 more pounds to the women’s bar I could guarantee I’d always find an available bar in the busy campus gym.
Harshes the vibe when gym bros interrupt every workout. Other guys would INSIST that I was GOING to hurt myself over time somehow with a 35lb bar because it’s “not designed for men.”
The way coaches now describe bars to new lifters by diameter and weight based on their competition federation seems to have removed the basis for that kneejerk reaction from the average non competing gymbro.
Just another example of people getting bent out of shape from the use of certain adjectives to refer to specific objects. Their lives must be either so complete that they're bored or so empty that they've got nothing better to do.
Just as we shouldn’t gender exercises (Women should be encouraged to do Overhead Presses, Men should be encouraged to do glute focused lunge variations) we shouldn’t gender equipment through their title. I’m not a oly lifter, but I don’t see a problem dropping “women’s barbell” title while keeping the weight and diameter exactly the same.
Tbf if we didn't compete with these barbells, then her argument would make sense... why differentiate? Just have different sizes bars and use the one that fits you best. But also, outside of weightlifting/CrossFit circles, people don't really refer to them as "mens Vs women's" barbells.
What's she's totally missing is that as soon as you compete with these barbells, you have to have to standardize the barbell to make it fair. When you do that, it just makes sense to assign the smaller barbell to the women's classes (you'd be screwing over female athletes if you didn't). And when you then train in a sport you're going to compete in, it makes sense to use the barbell you're going to use in competition in your training 🤷🏻♂️
It's not that deep guys