The Squat Bar

• Zinc Lead Time:  4 weeks
• Black Oxide Lead Time:  8 weeks
• Despite our best abilities and attempts, due to supply chain constraints and quality issues we are uncertain if the nickel finish bar will be available for sale in the future.
• Have a question? Click the "Question?" button above to go to the Q&A section.
  

SPECS

DESCRIPTION

This is our specialty squat bar, a thicker bar designed specifically for squatting to reduce the oscillation of the bar. This bar is fully knurled across the length of the bar with the exception of the center mark and standard powerlifting marks, 32mm in thickness, and 95 inches in overall length.

What is it about our new generation bars that sets them apart? With a tensile strength of over 250k PSI and a rockwell hardness of 51 RC, this bar is harder than any other bar currently on market. What this means in practical terms is that the knurl won’t wear down over the years, leaving you with a bar that is performing sub par, compared to when it was new. Even where the bar contacts the rack, it will maintain that fine, tacky, aggressive knurl, just like the day it was unboxed. 

The other piece of engineering that we are proud of, is the knurl itself.  We wanted to create something that grabbed well, but wasn’t so unnecessarily sharp that it cut your hands, rather than grabbing. The knurl of our bar is finer than most barbells you will find, giving the knurl more points per square inch and creating more surface area in which to create friction. 

Lastly, another small feature to differentiate our bar is the center marks in the knurl. We wanted to leave the squat bar with a continuous center knurl, so as to not lose any of the grip effects for squatting, but still have marking to indicate the bars center for alignment purposes.

We fully stand behind our product and believe in it wholeheartedly, which is why each bar comes with a 5 year warranty against any type of manufacturing defect. What this means is if your bar begins to wear prematurely, we will repair or replace it free of charge.  While our bar does have a higher tensile strength – what this doesn’t mean is that we will warranty against customer induced damage such as dropping the bar into metal safety pins. Depending on many variables such as the height and weight used this is just simply too much force into one area of the bar to not cause permanent deformation.

Bars come with a unique stamped end-cap design that features the famous Kabuki Squat Face as well as the weight of the bar and its country of origin (USA).

Our New Generation bars are passionately made using American steel by state-of-the-art machines, and hand-assembled in Portland, Oregon. We design and manufacture these bars to function for life - bars you can proudly hand down to your children, and them to their children - making the world a better place through strength generation after generation. 

Metallurgy 101

Testing occurred throughout the entire development process for our new generation bars. Materials selection involved testing to determine the optimal steel alloy to use. Lots of testing was performed on the hardening process and figuring out a way to create the hardest bar while still allowing for whip and preventing the bar from snapping. The knurl took us many many revisions to figure out until we all agreed on the production version of the knurl – widely considered to be the best knurl in the industry. Overall this bar has been tested and retested many times with every feature and specification in mind.

In this video, our chief engineer and co-owner Chris Duffin discusses the metallurgy and science of barbells. He explains what the common numbers are data are used to describe barbells and what they mean practically in real-world performance. If you’re not convinced our bar is the best, this video will explain factually and objectively why it is.

Knurl Test 

This video shows a knurl test performed on our New Generation bar against a competitor’s bar. The test had two components: 1) Our bar held stationary against a spinning competitors bar (on lathe) and 2) The competitor’s bar held stationary against our spinning bar.

Ed Coan Review

The GOAT himself, Ed Coan stopped by the Kabuki Strength booth when we were down at the US Open in San Diego and had this to say about our New Generation bars…

PLATING

All New Generation barbells are plated for corrosion resistance purposes. Below you will find more information about our 3 different platting options.

This is a premium finish. Nickel Plating is used in engineering applications where high wear, corrosion resistance, and hardness are needed.  Nickel plating is both more cosmetically appealing than stainless steel as well as significantly more corrosion resistant in like products than stainless steel! Nickel plating is more durable than chrome and will retain it's warm, mirror smooth polish for years until worn through.  In our application we believe Nickel plating to be both superior to Stainless steel in Cosmetic Finish, Corrosion Resistance, Surface Hardness, as well as maintaining the desired strength and material characteristics of our bar. Nickel is our favorite plating option, and in our opinion also the best looking.

The same corrosion resistant coating as the Shoulderok. Shiny and bright on arrival with a hue that varies from bluish to brownish. As the bar is used this coating will develop dull, gunmetal grey patina. The default, least expensive and a very durable and corrosion-resistant option.

Black oxide or blackening is a conversion coating for ferrous materials, stainless steel, copper and copper based alloys, zinc, powdered metals, and silver solder. It is used to add mild corrosion resistance, for appearance and to minimize light reflection. We particularly like the gunmetal black finish it gives to the bar. It just looks badass in our opinion!

Included: