Intro & 30 Second Summary
Last Sunday’s survey replicates a survey about “Specialty Bars” from 6 months ago. We’ll do this again in another 6 months or so to see how it changes.
Here is a quick summary of the results:
- The Safety Squat Bar overtook the Hex/Trap bar as the specialty bar most are interested in.
- The Deadlift Bar was the highest riser, rising from #5 on the list to #2 this time around.
- Overall, the amount of specialty bars are on the rise, but there aren’t any that seem to be a “must own” for most of the home gym population.
The Results
- First off, 87% said they knew what a “specialty bar” was. That is the same result as last time.
- Next, as mentioned above, more own specialty bars compared to 6 months ago. For example, about 54% did not own any in March, while the number is 47% this time. In addition, it appears that many added one or two during this timeframe. Sure, it’s not exactly the same group every time answering these questions, but it is a pretty noticeable shift.
| How Many Specialty Bars do You Own? | March 2021 | September 2021 | % Change |
| zero | 53.8% | 46.9% | -12.7% |
| one | 22.4% | 23.5% | 4.5% |
| two to three | 17.9% | 21.8% | 22.2% |
| four or more | 5.9% | 7.8% | 31.6% |
High Interest
- None had over 40% vote “high interest” and the total average was 26%. Therefore there isn’t any specialty bar right now that is a “must have” for most home gym owners.
- The safety squat bar with just under 40% “high interest” votes led the way. The deadlift, hex, and curl bars were all between 34 and 35%. The deadlift bar did jump from 5th place last time to #2 of “high interest” votes though.
Medium & Low Interest
- 29% of the total votes were “medium interest” with the Multi-Grip Bar leading the way around 40%.
- 39% of the total votes went to “low interest,” which was the biggest vote getter of them all. Log and Axle Bars each had more than 50% of votes for this option.
I Don’t Know What That Is
- Only 6% went to this category. The Camber and Buffalo/Duffalo bars were the least “known,” but both were still under a fifth.
Comparison to Last Time
To compare March Rankings to September, let’s say you assigned points:
- 3 points for the percentage of “High Interest” votes
- 2 points for the percentage of “Medium Interest” votes
- 1 point for the percentage of “Low Interest” votes
- 0 points for “IDK What This Is” votes
And averaged them out based on the percentage of votes.
The results are below. Overall, there isn’t much change in rankings, but you can see that the Safety Squat Bar went from the #2 ranked option in September to #1.
| Specialty Bar | March 2021 | September 2021 | March Rank | September Rank | Change |
| Safety Squat | 1.89 | 2.06 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Hex/Trap | 2.02 | 2.03 | 1 | 2 | -1 |
| Curl | 1.93 | 2.00 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Deadlift | 1.68 | 1.99 | 5 | 4 | 1 |
| Multi-Grip | 1.86 | 1.94 | 4 | 5 | -1 |
| Squat | 1.74 | 1.84 | 6 | 6 | 0 |
| Buffalo/Duffalo | 1.35 | 1.53 | 7 | 7 | 0 |
| Axle | 1.30 | 1.47 | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| Camber | 1.16 | 1.37 | 10 | 9 | 1 |
| Log Press | 1.26 | 1.32 | 9 | 10 | -1 |
With the same “points method” used above, you can see in the chart below (correlates to the chart above) that the Deadlift Bar rose the most. All did go up slightly, though.
That’s it!
Thanks to all who voted and read! We’ll do this survey again next March to see how it changes.
Also…
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