Thick Bars

Why are most of Black Iron Strength's Thick Bars 6 & 1/2 feet in length, as opposed to a standard Olympic bar, which is 7 feet long?

With the exception of 4 bars, all of our Thick Bars (sometimes called Fat Bars) are 6 & 1/2 feet long. The inside collar to inside collar length is the same as the standard length Olympic bar on every bar we produce and so every bar fits on any piece of equipment (i.e. Bench / Power Rack).

We took three inches off of each Thick Bar loading sleeve to keep the overall weight of the bars down. When we did the "focus groups" over 10 years ago with the college and pro strength coaches, their number one request was to keep the weight of the Thick Bars down and as close to 45 lbs. as possible.

The shorter loading points have never been a problem concerning running out of room to load plates. Many of the world's strongest men train with our Thick Bars and they have never complained about running out of loading room on the sleeves.

We were successful with this by cutting off the 3 inches on each end. With a lot of engineering, we were able to get to:

1 3/8 inch bar- 42.5 lbs.
1 3/4 inch bar- 37.5 lbs.
2 inch bar- 40 lbs.
2 1/4 inch bar- 42.5 lbs.
2 1/2 inch bar- 45 lbs.
2 3/4 inch bar- 47.5 lbs.
3 inch bar- 50 lbs.

These were our first thick bars when we started Black Iron Strength over 10 years ago. As time went on, some of the coaches wanted a 1 & 3/4 inch thick bar to use for all of their lifts and they asked me to do this in 7 feet. They also requested that we see if we could make it weigh 45 lbs. After numerous prototypes, we were able to do this. The next bar we did at 7 feet was a Power Bar that is 1 & 3/8 inches and is pretty stiff. This one weighs 50 lbs. and it is the only one we can do the entire bar as a Hard Chrome bar. The entire bar is Hard Chromed. Both of these 7 foot bars are very popular with lifters who are dead lifting and bench pressing.

The only other bar that is a different length is the Aluminum Training Bars which is 6 feet long and weighs 10 lbs. A lot of the schools order this for the kids and the women to teach them Olympic lifting technique. Again, every bar we make has the same length from inside collar to inside collar, the same length as any standard Olympic Bar. It took a lot of engineering to make these measurements happen.

KettleBells

Why do the first 3 weights of kettlebells (10lb, 12.5lb, 15lb) cost more?

Our customers asked us for a 10lb, 12.5lb, and 15lb. kettlebell that can stand vertically when set down. Because of the difference in weights of metals, aluminum was selected as the material instead of steel to get a solid piece of equipment in a shape that stood on its own. Aluminum, though, is more expensive than steel and more difficult to work with, hence the higher cost. Those are the only three kettlebells made of aluminum.