Rogue 32MM Squat Bar

Video Review

Written Review

This review of the Rogue 32MM Squat Bar is done by our friend, Brandon Campbell Diamond. You can subscribe to him on YouTube here.

Today I want to review the newest bar in my arsenal, the Rogue 32MM Squat Bar. If you follow my training logs, you might notice that I used this the other day while traveling in Seattle and I really fell in love with it. I'll tell you why in a second, but part of that was because I hit my top single at a pretty easy RPE and of course you credit the equipment and not your actual hard work /s. Yes, I'm no different in that regard either, but I told myself I wanted to get it, but I've also been trying to really hold off on buying new equipment until I'm in the new house because there's a lot of other expenses I've had and I made it through November. Okay. I made it through black Friday even.

I thought I was good with holding off on buying a new bar and then this one showed up in the Boneyard Section on Rogue's website. If you're not familiar, the Boneyard Section is basically where Rogue puts barbells that have cosmetic blemishes and then sell them at a discount. This will be my third Boneyard Barbell that I've owned, the other two being the Stainless Steel Ohio Power Bar and the Stainless Steel Ohio Bar, so this makes the third bar I bought, which also happens to be stainless steel. And again, the discounts for me are good enough and the cosmetic blemishes are inconspicuous enough that it just really makes sense for me and I'll continue to try to buy bars out of there when I can. Now you're probably asking yourself, do you really need a squat bar? And my answer is probably you don't.

In fact, I don't think many people do, but I do think that they are a good tool to have, especially if you compete in a Federation that uses a squat bar because you're going to want to practice how you play. Now I've come to really like them for some other reasons as well. Namely being that they're a thicker diameter at 32MM compared to a normal power bar at 29MM like the Kabuki Strength New Gen Power Bar or a Buddy Capps Texas Power Bar at 28.5MM. It's just that half a millimeter that makes all the difference. Right... But that difference is huge for me because I think it covers more area on my back, which then makes me feel like the bar is always more secure. Now again, because this is a specialty bar, you typically get more aggressive, better knurling and that's no different here. In fact, the knurling on this bar is basically the same as the Ohio Power Bar, so you get a 32MM Ohio Power Bar that, is a fully knurled shaft, which is great for a squat bar, in my opinion.

Squat bars are made in a way that they shouldn't really be using it for anything else. There's no reason to have any smooth shaft on your back, so that's all good about this as well. Another big thing about this is the bar is longer, which I think initially is for people who have poor shoulder mobility or shoulder and pigments and they want to reach out all the way out wide squat. That's not my case as I'm a pretty narrow grip squatter, but the length here has really helped me in this Rogue rack that I have, which is 49 inches wide, because it pushes the weights out a little bit further, so I never hit the uprights on racking. Which if you've ever done, you can agree is a very hard thing to overcome, especially if you're going for a heavy squat. It just kind of throws everything off from there.

Thankfully, I've never had a problem with that on the Rogue Squat Bar. Now I have used other squat bars before, which I've done videos on which you can check out. The reason I really wanted the Rogue version is because I do like Rogue stuff. I feel like it's made very well. The price point on this is also very attractive. I mentioned already, it was discounted, so I paid $375 for this particular bar. But also, since I've moved into this rental and training in the garage, one of the things that I've come to find is I really prefer stainless steel bars. Number one, they don't oxidize or rust anywhere near as quick as some of the other bars that I've owned, which still isn't necessarily a lot, but it requires more upkeep than I'm used to or I want to accomplish. So, I'd much rather pay for a nicer finish and effort to make things easier on me having to clean them more frequently.

Also with that, one of the things I really like about stainless is it's not a coating between the bar and your hands. So if you take something like black zinc, Cerakote or chrome, yes, it could potentially add more resistance to oxidation than a bare steel bar, but the trade off is, it really kind of dulls the feeling of the knurling itself. This to me is probably one of the most important things for a bar. So, you have bare steel and you have stainless steel and those are the two best feeling bars in my opinion. But they're on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to oxidation. So stainless steel for me, if I can, will always be my choice in any bar out there. Now, the one caveat with this particular bar is that the sleeves themselves are chrome. There's been some people who say, you know, if you have a stainless shaft you want to have stainless sleeves as well.

I'm not in that camp. That does not matter to me as much because with the sleeves I find putting on weights a lot, the sleeves are gonna get banged up, nicked up pretty good. And, for the most part when you talk about oxidation, where I see that the most on barbells is typically on the shaft where you have your hands or where you have chalk, where you sweat. So again, the trade off for me is fine, especially considering that if you want to add in stainless sleeves, in most cases it significantly increases the price. Just take for instance to look at Rogue's recent Ohio Power Bar , which up until recently was only available in a stainless shaft and Chrome sleeves.

They've now done a completely stainless version and the price has shot up quite a good deal. And again, you're not changing any of the performance or oxidation of the part that counts in my opinion, which is the shaft. It's all about the shaft, right? So, it's not a big deal to me, in fact, I prefer it because it gets the overall costs down, which again at three 75 I think is very attractive. I say that because even though I've reviewed more affordable bars, if you take a look at, I think the industry standard, which is either the Texas Squat Bar that retails for $368 for just bare steel, which I wouldn't want to get because again, the oxidation and the rust you have to keep up with. So, you're probably gonna want to get it in one of the other finishes, which is either going to be a black zinc or a Chrome, which is going to add cost and also dull the feel of the knurling.

And, once you do that to both the shaft and the sleeves, you're looking at a price that is very comparable to what this will cost you anyways. Also, I think Rogue has much cheaper shipping of like 15 to $20 compared to the TPB site, which I quickly did was like $70 to ship. So this bar wins out there. The other bar that's kind of getting a lot of steam and pub these days is the Kabuki Strength New Generation Squat Bar, which I've heard really good things about. And I do own Kabuki bars and I do like them, but the price point for me is just kind of out of my league of what I'd want to pay. They have a bar that retails starting out for run $700 and their finishes aren't stainless steel, which again is the one I prefer. I believe they have chrome, nickel and black zinc.

So again, it adds some onto the bar. I'm just going to dull the knurling and that case, the cost is tremendously higher where it just doesn't warrant it. So, for me, this bar potentially is the best squat bar out there given the performance, the specs, and the overall cost. Additionally, the nice thing is, is that by getting this one out of the Boneyard, I saved around $75 off of the total cost. Now you might be asking, all right, yeah, it's Boneyard. You're going to get a cosmetic defect. What is it on this bar? And to be honest, like the other bars that I've had, I really had to look it over to find anything and I'm still not sure that that's the actual reason it was thrown into the Boneyard Section. Now, when I take a look at some of the ring marks on here, which by the way, there are three of them, which is really nice.

So, there's one to actually center yourself on the bar and there's the normal powerlifting knurl rings you're looking at. They tend to be a little bit sloppy on where they terminate. If I compare that to some of my other bars from Rogue that I own, I think that's one of the reasons that they put that in there. The others is one of the actual sleeves at the end has a little chip in the chrome. I think that may be from shipping, but I don't think so because this thing was shipped extremely well in a tube with styrofoam at the end and it was not only kind of stapled shut and the end caps weren't damaged in shipping at all. But, they also put heavy duct tape on the end also just to ensure they didn't pop off. But, otherwise I can't find any imperfections on here, which again, is one of the reasons I'll continue to source the Boneyard because the deals I think are much more worth it than paying $100 more for a bar. I will say the other interesting thing on this bar particularly is the end caps are actually blank and I hesitate when I say that because when you look at them, yes they're blank and most other Boneyards bars have a specific Boneyard end cap. I think I actually prefer the blank look, but after I posted it on Instagram, a lot of people said that their Boneyard Bars that had a blank cap, they switched it around and they actually found that it had a printing on it.

So I decided to take these off and take a look and I have a 28MM Rogue Training Bar end cap on both of the end caps, which is kind of funny because I could leave them like that and have the thickest 28MM shaft you ever did see or ever got your hands on. But that's my Rogue Squat Bar from the Boneyard. Looking forward to continuing to use it because you know, upgrade my bars to stainless steel where I can.

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