This happened to me dude. It's real, it's not in your head.
I've gone to like 5 different gyms within the span of 6 months. All 5 of them I have gone to on several occasions. 3 of them had this barbell that seemed to add like 20lbs to all my lifts, 2 of them had this really nice barbell that made me feel incredibly strong. I don't know if it's the grip circumference, spin, weight distribution, or what but something is seriously fucking up my numbers. All of the barbells felt the same weight.
bump we need to talk about this
one of you knows how these bars are made, fucking fess up, what's going on
Technique or junior weightlifting bars with short collars like in OP are often made of aluminium and weigh 10kg. They're used so you can learn technique on lifts with very low weight.
Women's weightlifting bars weight 15kg, and have a slightly smaller diameter (25mm)
Men's weightlifting bars and most standard Olympic and power bars weight 20kg and have a 27-29mm knurling
Other than that you can get 25 and 30 kg squat bars that are thick as for 1000+ lbs. Speciality bars will almost always have a different weight, safety squat bars can be 30kg or more
And you also get deadlift bars, which are just close enough to be mistaken for regular bars but will royally fuck with anyone using one by mistake.
Pretty sure they do make women's weightlifting barbells that are 35 pounds. Besides that, all are 45 but obviously some has their weight more distributed than others which might effect you be longer
You're right Op, it's true.
At my school gym we got 2 different bars for bench press, one bar i can press 1plate ezpz, with the other bar 1plate legit feels like 155lbs with the other bar, i think they mix up different bars for deadlifts or squats as the normal press bars, it's messed up.
how does a deadlift bar and normal press bar differ?
Some companies sell speciaize bars that for some unknown reason weigh heavier for the marketing purpose or legit purpose of HEY THIS IS A DEADLIFT BAR IT'S BETTER FOR DEADLIFTS, same thing with squat bars.
Differ by weigh or slighty by dimension or knnurling or color or bending
Deadlift bars are slightly longer and thinner than a regular barbell, with larger sleeves. They hold slightly more plates, have really strong knurling and tend to bend an awful lot during lifts.
Squat bars are the same length as regular 20kg barbells, but they're heavier (usually 25kg rather than 20), thicker and super aggressive on the grip (try deadlifting with one of these and it'll likely try and tear your calluses clean off). Because of the extra weight and thickness they bend much less than regular barbells.
Those are both really rare to see outside of specialist gyms though.
>that guy that switches barbells mid-set