
Table of Contents
Intro
UPDATED 2021 – I updated the list of grooved and smooth sleeved bars further below.
In recent years some manufacturers have added small grooves onto the sleeves of olympic bars, as shown in the pic to the left. People have also referred to them as ridges or ribbed sleeves. All the same thing. There have been questions from time to time on what that’s all about.
To complicate things, Rogue unveiled their Russian Bar in 2016, which has huge grooves, a totally different animal than the little grooves we’ve seen for years. I’m going to call them Russian grooves here for the sake of simplicity.
The Russians developed them decades ago, in the dark Soviet years (hey, something good came out of the Soviet Union!).
Why The Different Styles?
Because there weren’t enough complexities in the design of olympic bars already, right?
Each of these sleeve styles does have arguable advantages.
Smooth sleeves are the classic design. Easy, relatively quiet plate loading. Not much to say about it! They’re my favorite, personally.
With grooved sleeves, the tiny grooves keep plates in place better if you choose not to secure them with collars. Frankly, a lot of folks lift that way…
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TANGENT – Lifting Without Collars Since I mentioned it…
Experienced lifters don’t always use collars, for two reasons.
For one thing, they have found that in certain situations there’s little or no need to secure the plates. The rationale is they don’t move much, and if you know there will be no problem at all in getting the weight up smoothly then it’s much like lifting with plates loaded unsecured on a weight machine, which tends to be seen as much more acceptable. But you need to be aware of when it is and isn’t perfectly safe to do this with freeweight barbell lifting.
Doing heavy sets with unsecured plates when you have other people also lifting around you is a bad idea. Do what you like in private, but if you hurt someone else, you, sir, are a bad person.
The second reason experienced lifters may choose to not use collars is as a safety precaution when bench pressing. If they fail a heavy rep and are at risk of crushing themselves, tilting the bar to the side causes the plates to dump off one end, and with that end unloaded the bar flips the other way and the plates slide off that end. It’s a wacky way to do things, but it does work I guess, at the risk of damaging your plates and surrounding walls/equipment. It’s far better to lift in a power rack with safety bars or safety straps.
When you do use collars on grooved sleeves, the grooves can significantly help keep some types of collars from slipping, notably any collars that can tend to catch on the grooves (such as the cheapo spring clips) or anything with a rubber padding that the grooves sink into.
A few problems with grooved sleeves. One, a “zzzzzzzzzzziiiiiipp!” or similar sound plates make running over the grooves when you load them. Second, with iron plates the extra friction is annoying, because you often want to be able to slide a plate on with one hand or minimal effort with two hands, and it takes some extra pushing to get a 45lb plate on grooved sleeves. Third, the grooves chew off any enamel or powder coat finish on the plate hole, leaving you with a mess to clean over time.
Plates with steel inserts such as bumper plates will slide smoother against them and won’t bring up these issues.
The last style of sleeve is the old Russian design. Rogue decided it didn’t just look cool but has a notable functional advantage – that of securing your plates way better than any other design when you’re dropping the bar for multiple reps.
Here’s how the Russian style sleeves work. You need their special collars (which Rogue includes with the bar). Load your plates. Slide the collar on, locking them down into the last groove you can get to, which by design will be some distance from the plates. Then spin the inner part of the collar to move it snug against the plates. This is guaranteed to keep the collar from slipping when you drop cleans, because the pressure of one portion of the collar against the plates is backed up by the other portion of the collar being secured into that huge groove in the bar sleeve. It aint getting knocked loose. The collar would have to break first.
The Russian style sleeve didn’t catch on when Rogue and Eleiko brought it back. Users are generally not fans of it, given how it makes loading plates harder.
The situation now is the grooved sleeves are used on a lot on weightlifting-specific or general-purpose bars. Lifters doing cleans or snatches get the best use out of the grooved sleeves with all the dropping of the bar from shoulder height or overhead. Decent collars stay in place a lot better, resulting in little or not shifting of plates after several drops.
On power bars you’ll see a lot of smooth sleeves. Powerlifting movements don’t involve such big drops as a matter of routine, and the grooves don’t end up being as useful. While some manufacturers go with uniformly grooved or smooth sleeves across all models of bars, others use smooth sleeves only on their power bars, and that’s the reason why.
Brands that Use Each Style Sleeve
I’m trying to include many top brands that I can get definitive info on here. If I made a mistake or omission, let me know and I’ll update the list!
Note that this has changed over time, with manufacturers adding or removing grooves to some bars. This guide is for current models.
Smooth Sleeves
- York Barbell
- Rep Fitness (power bars only)
- American Barbell Stainless Steel Power Bar
- Intek Strength
- Fringe Sport Wonder Bar & Bomba Bar V3
- Vulcan Strength (Absolute Stainless Steel, One Basic, and Powerlifting bar)
- Ivanko Barbell
- Eleiko – all except Power Lock
- Uesaka
- Werksan
- Troy Barbell – all newer bars
- + Most cheaper bars $115 or so
Grooved Sleeves
- Rogue Fitness
- Rep Fitness (weightlifting and general-use bars)
- Bells of Steel
- Fringe Sport Weightlifting Bar
- Wright Equipment
- American Barbell (most bars)
- Titan Fitness
- Synergee Fitness
- Ironmaster OB 86
- Vulcan Strength (most bars)
- ForceUSA
- Texas Power Bars
- Solid Bar Fitness
- I Sell Fitness
- Troy Barbell – Older bars only: AOB-1500B, AOB-1200B, GOB-1200
- CAP Barbell
- Rage Fitness
From Eleiko Service I was told, that all their barbells also have grooved sleeves now. :(
Ok, thanks for the news! I’m emailing you to get more info.
I read the SS thread, but I won’t lie, I skipped the physics debate. I have a CAP barbell with grooves, and a SSB that is smooth. I don’t know anything about the cost to manufacture and all that; I consider the grooves to be a safety feature, because on any reasonably level rep, you don’t need collars (due to more friction than a smooth sleeve not less), but if you had to dump the plates so as not to die on a failed rep on a bench press or squat, you can tip up 1 end and they slide right off (not a problem for me, I lift in a rack). but the SSB, with smooth sleeves, requires collars on every rep.
downsides to the grooves: some find the noise of loading/unloading annoying, and if you’re not careful, you’ll occasionally get steel shavings splinters in the skin of your fingers (hurts pretty bad).
I’m a smooth sleeve guy, mainly for the lack of noise. I always use collars, without which the plates shift easily, but then maybe that wouldn’t happen if I used a bar with grooved sleeves! I just happen to be using the Troy GOB-1800 now.
I don’t generally collar my weights, except when deadlifting. Even with the grooves, touching the floor between reps causes the weights to “walk” out a bit. Not so they’d fall off, but they get sloppy and distracting.
For squats and overhead presses, I don’t collar and have never had a problem. For bench press, I would never collar the weights for the reason you mentioned. Even though I moved to benching in a rack, it feels safer not to collar (I lift alone).
The real problem for me with grooved sleeves is the noise from adding/removing weights, which is a problem in my home gym at night.
This thread on the Starting Strength board is about grooves sleeves, and quotes Rogue CS. I realize this is third hand info, but if true it does indicate Rogue is defaulting to grooved sleeves for newer bars. It’s a good thread, but I would ignore the discussion of coefficients of friction and centrifugal force, unless you’re into that sort of thing.
https://startingstrength.com/resources/forum/mark-rippetoe-q-and-a/82242-rings-knurling-sleeves-barbell-2.html#post1695147
I believe that most Rogue bars now have grooved sleeves, according to threads on other boards. Rogue doesn’t mention grooved vs smooth sleeves on their site, that I can find.
John, could you share a link where it’s mentioned that newer Rogue bars have grooved sleeves? Sometimes it’s not clear when someone is talking about an older bar they have that they assume is the same as the newest version.
Sorry, see my reply above, out of sequence.
Thanks, and I also checked with Rogue today – They confirmed that they are making all the bars with grooved sleeves. So I need to update the article!