<I've seen mention of "trap bar" and have never heard of this. What's a "trap bar?">

A trap bar is a diamond-shaped lifting bar that you stand inside, gripping the built-in handles outside of and parallel to your legs. Weights are added to the ends outside your hands, changing the balance considerably from a traditional bar.

I assume from the name "trap bar" that it was originally designed for shrugs, but actually, around our gym anyway, I've only seen one guy use it for shrugs. Probably the most popular use for the trap bar is a deadlift. The trap bar takes the strain off the lower back when compared to a traditional bent legged deadlift and because of the arrangement of the hands as well as standing *inside* the bar places additional work on the thighs making it a kind of a combination squat and deadlift.

The hand position allows a more vertical pull and changes the leverage from a traditional straight bar deadlift, also keeps the back flatter - not rounding - and therefore safer from strain. Because of all this, you can actually go very heavy - in my opinion much heavier than with a straight bar, and it doesn't bang your shins up either!

How one would best be used seems to be very individual and appears to be based on body structure. If you're built for squats but not very good at deadlifts, the trap bar will probably serve you well for deadlifts, and vice versa. We got ours a few months ago and it's popular, but slow to take off as most people have never seen one used. I think we paid about $200+ for it, bought it from the internet, although off the top of my head I can't remember where we found it.

Laree

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Just returned from the gym. Decided to give the Trap Bar a shot. What a difference it made in my deadlifts. My back stayed much straighter and having my arms straight down to my sides seemed to hit my traps much harder than with an olympic bar. Might want to try it.

Paul

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If you don't have a trap bar available, use dumbbells. If your dumbbell racks contain heavy enough DBs, there's no problem: Wear straps on your hands and start pulling. If not, do the reps with an emphasis on smoooooooth reps, which end up being fairly slow. That stresses the heck out of the thighs, hips, and lower back (upper back, too). And doing warmup sets without straps gives the hands and forearms a heavy workout. DB Squats also are excellent for high intensity interval training: e.g., 8 x 6 with diminishing rest intervals.

Steve W.