Play It Again Sports Trap Bar
The hexagonal barbell, also known as the trap or hex bar, is prized by some coaches and scoffed by others. Its popularity is growing in fettle ci[prcles, likely due to its simplicity and the power to load athletes quickly. Although I detest the hex bar, I still employ information technology at key times for very narrow reasons.
It's not that I actually hate the bar–I'm just not a fan of most uses of the bar in sports training. In this commodity, I go back to my sometime roots of pulling no punches and hurting feelings. I also do a amend job of showing alternatives and giving examples of when using the hex bar make sense. If y'all're using a hex bar at present, you may rethink what you're doing. And if you never thought you would utilise it, you may decide to try information technology.
Concerns Over the Hex Bar
I have many reasons for writing this commodity, and my top three are obvious to other coaches in the same gunkhole as I am.
- First, the hex bar is at present a hybrid replacement for deadlifting and squatting with coaches who want to inflate numbers so it looks similar athletes are building forcefulness.
- Second, athletes often perform the deadlift exercise with piffling to no eccentric strain.
- Last, every bit athletes use the hex bar more, educational activity conventional barbell exercises becomes an boosted responsibleness, and we terminate up in a situation where we're not edifice on experience.
A proficient argument can be made that simply switching to a conventional barbell creates the aforementioned problems. And this is true. Don't blame the tool, blame the craftsman. Biomechanically, the hex bar is different than a conventional straight barbell. Discover I said unlike and did not say i was better than the other. Then why the detest? Let me explicate my principal reason why you lot should put the hex bar in the storage room, merely non throw it abroad entirely.
The Hype Over the Hex Bar Deadlift
Nigh ten years ago, the hex bar deadlift (HBD) started receiving more than attention thanks to the increase in private preparation. I'm not a conspiracy theorist; but someday you see a trend, follow the money trail. And I'm not blaming the manufacturers or distributors of hex confined.
I am blaming coaches who take advantage of parents and athletes by using the advantages of the barbell to get the appearance of getting stronger faster. Loading a hex bar is easy, and since the deadlift is a mechanically advantageous exercise, teenage boys start hitting the magical number of 315 pounds (3 plates per side) rather quickly. Presently every athlete in the training group is part of the triple bumper Instagram social club, and the passenger vehicle is the pied piper for athletes in the local area.
Many grooming facilities, including those I've worked at, include a hex bar for deadlifting and hybrid squatting. Regardless of the blazon of plate used with hex bar squats, athletes bounce out of the hole and practise a lot of junk reps instead of performing the exercise properly. Even when an athlete squats with control, the HBD creates paraspinal strain like to the conventional deadlift. I don't want to create a fear of an exercise, as the spinal loading isn't that bad, but eccentric deadlifts are not a wise idea.
Reducing a lift's #eccentric movement does non prepare athletes well, says @spikesonly. Click To Tweet
The primary purpose of hex bar lifting is to reduce the lumbar strain (slightly) compared to conventional barbell deadlifts. Merely reducing the eccentric component is an incomplete strategy for preparing athletes. I'm a fan of make clean style deadlifts equally an accessory lift. As nosotros've seen over the years, however, coaches frequently take an accompaniment lift and load it in means that mimic traditional movements. And sometimes we see problems in the long run.
Athletes can improve with nearly any exercise, and acute benefits from conventional and hex bar deadlifts exist in the research. My betoken is that many coaches use the HBD considering it jacks the numbers up, and athletes love appearing stronger.
Eccentric Contractions and Deadlifting
The deadlift motility concentrates on pulling the bar upwards concentrically–not letting it down eccentrically. Except for the Romanaian deadlift, which is a variation in the deadlift family unit. Since barbell lifts are considered a primary pick in training, having the bulk of one's grooming without much eccentric motion over time is a bad plan.
Amazingly, many teams use the Nordic hamstring exercise in a drastic endeavor to get their NordBord scores up when there are better alternative lifts available. Deadlifts do create a lot of tension on the hamstrings and glutes, only the main stimulus is a concentric action of these muscles.
Eccentric training is not the magic bullet. Simply what marvels me is that many exercises, such as the step-up and box jumps, are washed without eccentric contributions. Add together a primary diet of concentric HBD, and you accept an athlete who is out of rest. And considering some coaches are agape of soreness, they intentionally remove the eccentric motility every bit much as possible.
It'due south 1 thing to be unlucky and simply option the three exercises where eccentric activeness is low, only intentional efforts to do and then is like shooting your athletes with friendly burn down. For all the talk about antifragile training, the HBD does non create antifragile athletes, especially in their hamstrings.
A new study on deadlifting which included a comparison betwixt using conventional and hex bars was done recently at California State (Fullerton). My favorite function of the written report was not the differences between the barbells, but the fact both elicited less eccentric contributions in the hamstrings. Evidently the written report used the i-rep maximum test with the directly bar equally a way to normalize the hex bar values, simply the amplitude values were lower during the eccentric portion of the lifts, even when participants were instructed to lower the bar advisedly.
Eccentric contractions and EMG readings are non perfect, but the research clearly supports what many coaches know–if yous drop the weights, you drop the eccentric contraction as well. Performing conventional deadlifts with the hex bar is non a great way to develop eccentric adaptations in loftier-risk muscles like the hamstrings.
What About Peak Power or Elevation Forces?
A few inquiry studies take used ground reaction forces for avant-garde analysis and included barbell speed to dig deeper into the differences betwixt conventional deadlifts and HBDs. Many of the differences, all the same, were small. Regardless, the comparison is pointless since coaches should consider all exercises when training athletes.
The aforementioned studies that compared the EMG activity of key leg musculus groups, including the paraspinal muscles, also added force analysis to the research. All things being equal, the vertical forces elicited on a strength plate are higher with HBDs because the concentric movement is closer to a squat, and enquiry has uncovered far more information almost the squat than the deadlift.
In early on 2017, the Periodical of Strength and Conditioning, the principal source of information on hex bar research, published a comparison study of other exercises. They compared the two bars for deadlifts, of course, but they likewise compared mid-thigh pulls as well as contrasting with a bodyweight-only countermovement jump. They also included joint angles to understand why, outside of directly musculus recruitment, the numbers between the 2 bars are different.
Video 1.
The Hex Bar is a pop tool for loaded jumps. When training athletes with limitations, it's very helpful to add a VBT device or force assay measurement.
The results were not shocking. The isometric deadlifts and the mid-thigh pulls were so shut that essentially there was no difference that would affair in sports grooming–swapping out barbells isn't a game changer. What I constitute concerning, though, was the conclusion about the relationship of the lifts with the vertical jump discussed the end of the study. I suspect that the results were not due to a training effect but were correlated to a review of recreational young men, non robust athletes on a rugby team.
Speaking of rugby, a study out of Ireland looked at hex bar spring squats, sprints, and peak ability. I love rugby inquiry because it's the only team sport that provides great information on serious training, not just talented athletes. Unfortunately this study compared athletic power and barbell spring squat information, not barbells and how preparation can show up later in testing.
An astute comparison studied jump squats and unloaded jumps with both directly and hex confined with rugby athletes on the other side of the swimming (U.k. study). This written report, the best and most important, shows why you should consider the barbell swap–with caution.
Hex Bar Jumps: Benefits and Risks
Here is the interesting question: Are conventional barbell squat jumps a affair of the past since the UK study showed the hex bar provided a more favorable ability to utilise leg power? My answer is very simple–it depends. I'll share the details necessary to reach this decision.
Use the #HexBar for jumps when performed in isolation and with light loads, says @spikesonly. Click To Tweet
I favor using hex bar for jumps only when performed in isolation and not paired with a direct barbell elevator. Also, the load of a hex bar jump must exist light; the forces pulling downward on the arm are not documented and do pose a small potential hazard. I'grand non worried about a subluxation or something similar, but some athletes who have a lot of laxities and a history of dislocation do notice a departure betwixt jumps with weights to their side and slower pulling exercises.
Beyond this rare but real risk, the hex bar offers a compelling reason to swap or upgrade. Based on my experience, ballistic jumps and Olympic lifts don't create shoulder issues from rapid pulling. Blindly adding any practice, though, is foolish.
The results of the UK study pointed to placing the loads below the hip and not on the shoulder. In most studies, the conclusions are speculation, merely the Uk study was i of the few times the discussion was golden. It was both practical and insightful about how and why the differences mattered in performance.
Both kinetic power and kinematics were superior with the hex bar jump using lighter loads. We still need to encounter, nevertheless, what happens over time. Having a meliorate peak or average number with one barbell leap conditioning may not mean much in a complete program.
When placing a bar on the upper back, athletes tend to squat rather than jump, says @spikesonly. Click To Tweet
Before adopting whatever change, y'all have to inquire what information technology'southward worth and whether information technology's worth doing. The return on investment of any practise requires a careful weighing of the pros and cons. The authors of the UK report made some smart observations that when an athlete places a bar on their upper back (posterior shoulders), they tend to resort to a squatting action versus a jump-like motility. With the law of specificity in training, sometimes loading an exercise makes sense, provided the entire program is considered.
As training resources compress, a simpler and more direct arroyo may be necessary. No written report that I know of compares the outcome of leap squats with dissimilar barbells and running speed and the power to change direction, so we must have the ameliorate jump numbers with a grain of salt.
My concluding point addresses the importance of hex bar load strategies with loaded jumping for power. In a comprehensive study on optimal loading, researchers suggested using ten-20% of a one-rep maximum. My just contention here is that meridian power, or optimal power, is often misleading.
Expressing ability and developing power can be confusing; the best means to improve the ability to generate force rapidly sometimes rely on slower movements with greater force. High-velocity movements with piffling overload or grooming effect have advantages in displaying power. Only movements with tremendous loading to the body, however, seem to transfer to such every bit activities as sprinting.
Benefits of Alternative Hex Bar Exercises
Besides deadlifts, thigh pulls, and jumps, the hex bar can help improve a training program. I've seen a lot of videos and articles on culling exercises. Some are interesting, some very ingenious, some are just variations for the sake of variation.
Most of the hex bar'due south benefits rely on its anatomically advantageous grip position and the fact it passes through the midpoint of the body rather than the anterior. Dissimilar a typical straight bar, the hex bar places an athlete more evenly in the middle, and they don't have to dispense their position to load the trunk. During the pressing phase, this helps athletes who accept poor mobility or constricted torso types.
Lifting weights off the floor is important for those who do total Olympic lifts or want to claiming the posterior body. While the knee angle changes as well as the hip with hex confined, they help reinforce skillful mechanics a footling more than a straight bar. Notice I didn't say better, as a slap-up motorbus tin outperform a slap-up tool any day of the week.
With straight bar deadlifting, athletes who don't train a lot and accept limited motor references feel confusion when they don't accept much time and demand to learn how to perform the clean and snatch movements–conventional and hex bar deadlifts create this confusion. Instruction an athlete how to have a tight back and a total leg pull is a great way to progress to other exercises outside of deadlifting.
#HexBars are a expert choice for shoulder presses, especially a Sots press and a standing printing, says @spikesonly. Click To Tweet
Pressing is the 2d best pick for hex bars (other than jumps and pulls). While it's likely it was never designed as a shoulder press tool, the hex bar provides a clever way to press without concerns that the bar will not clear the chin or caput. And although unlike hex bars create unlike demands on the handgrip and shoulder, using them for a Sots Printing or a standing shoulder press avoids dealing with dumbbells that get awkward at 100 pounds or more.
One problem, though, is that the hex bar simply has one width size. Unlike barbells and dumbbells, the hex bar does not provide an individualized fit. I rarely have anyone press with a bar, simply at that place have been a few times when it provided a keen workaround in a jam.
Other exercises, like farmer's walks, balance push button-ups, and core exercises are overnice to accept merely don't excite me. Most of these exercises demonstrate what we can practice with a hex bar creatively, but I don't run into superior reasons to do the exercise with the apparatus versus alternative options. One off-white argument for using the bar is saving costs by not ownership other tools, including unstable devices like a BOSU.
I suggest not investing in confined to practise exercises that are not staples in your program. Some new bars are designed to be racked, only most bars are typically like in design as they endeavor to supersede the typical 20-kilo load straight barbell weight. Extreme hex bars may non have raised handles, which is likely due design issues with heavy strain and other needs.
When the Hex Bar Makes Sense
When deciding to add together or replace an exercise with the hex bar, do so when information technology will salvage time, add a special or unique stimulus, or solve a trouble that other options can't. I can't remember of in one case I e'er said "Thank God for the hex bar." I've been lucky to have it, though, for testing jumps and regressing athletes who come in with bad technique habits. A hex bar is simply a unlike option than a straight bar. The hex bar besides provides variety in a program, but I'd rather modify a program for a purpose–not merely to entertain my athletes.
Hex bars make sense for #LoadedJumps, pressing, and teaching spinal positions for pulling, says @spikesonly. Click To Tweet
Including a hex bar makes the most sense for loaded jumps, educational activity spinal positions for pulling, and during pressing variations. Athletes should non utilize it for squat alternatives, a way to load the body faster, or a means to provide entertainment.
A popular manner to test leg strength and power is using the hex bar with an LPT or an accelerometer. Due to the similarities of the jumping mechanics with a hex bar and unloaded atmospheric condition, the data is very useful for a quick and dirty power appraisal. The clever and convenient part of testing with the hex bar is that information technology's non dumped on the ground and won't harm LPTs mounted on the flooring.
Decide for Yourself When to Use the Hex Bar
I've made my case for using the hex bar with intelligence and when it makes sense to railroad train traditionally with a straight bar. Near of my arguments circumduct around removing the ego and focusing on what works to help athletes, not whether they appear stronger. Knowing that the hex bar is a slap-up functioning tool for jumping and a limited tool for deadlifting, coaches are likely to exist surprised to learn that popular approaches to using it are but that, pop. Occasionally grabbing a hex bar can spice up a program, merely for the nigh part, targeting the areas where it enhances performance is your smartest path.
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