Elitefts American Press Bar

Elitefts American Press Bar

The Elitefts American Press Bar is a straight-handled swiss bar with a single set of angled grips near the center to provide additional variety.

Read more for details.

Features & Highlights

• 4 Grip Widths/5 Total Grip Options – The Elitefts American Press Bar offers four grip widths: three neutral grips spaced at 17″, 24″, and 30″ and one angled grip spaced 8″ apart. By flipping the bar over, you can access the opposite angle, giving you five total grip options.
• Rackable – This bar is rackable and will fit any space between 39.5″ and 50.5″, which essentially covers all bases.
• Sleeve Length – On the American Press Bar, you get a sleeve length of 15.5″, which is on the higher end of the spectrum for this style of bar.
• Powder Coat Finish – Powder Coat is a very common finish on specialty bars. It does a good job at limiting oxidation, but it does tend to show scuffs easily, especially on the sleeves and rack contact points.
• Non-Olympic Sized Sleeve – The sleeves on The Elitefts American Press Bar are not Olympic-sized, which means you will need specialty collars. My personal recommendation is Proloc since they can be used on any bar. They would very well and they’re well-priced.

From the Manufacturer

The American Press Bar was designed specifically for the bench press (as opposed to the Multi-Grip Swiss Bar which caters to the log press). Therefore, the handles are not as long to provide wrist stability needed for log presses.

The variety of parallel and angled grips makes this a great bar for benching, overhead pressing, triceps extensions, rowing, hammer curls, and more.

Unlike most bars, the grip varies from handle to handle—the outer handles are thinner and the inner ones get progressively thicker. These three neutral grips are based on the most popular grips used in the bench press. From the inside out:

• Pinkies on or near the smooth
• An extended thumb away from the smooth
• Middle-finger on the smooth

The fourth grip is a close, angled grip perfect for triceps extensions (facing either way), curling, and semi-pronated reverse curls.

Remember, there are times you need to back off from your normal movement patterns (such as your competition bench grip) to give the body a break and bring up weaknesses in other movement patterns. For heavy benchers, a parallel grip may provide the magical break your shoulders crave.

What They’re Saying at Elitefts

The Elitefts American Press Bar receives very good feedback users. With an average rating of 4.8/5, here are some of the things people have said at elitefts.com.

Positive

• “Great for pressing – overhead and bench-variations – and great for rowing. This bar is one of the best out there for a multitude of reasons; triceps are weak? shoulders are weak? the hard-to-hit muscles of the upper back? This bar can develop and strengthen them like no other bar can. The widest handles, combined with the neutral grip, when rowing, will annihilate the upper back. Furthermore, if your triceps or shoulders are the weak-points of your bench press, they won’t be after cycling this bar into your routine. A simply amazing bar and well worth the price.”
• “With this bar I just added at least 10 new variations to my home gym. Great quality bar, handles are perfect. The angled grips are awesome for tri work. Very happy with this bar! This bar is gonna be a shoulder saver doing overhead presses with.”
• “Really a quality product! It’s a great bar and it’s nice for a change of pace from your typical straight bar. Really easy to expose your weaknesses and work them up as well. I’ve used it for Bench and rows and the different handles are awesome to switch it up.”
• “Very nice bar. Well built, solid and useful for quite a few movements. Love it. Thanks for another great product.”
• “This bar is awesome, you can perform all kinds of presses without aggravating your shoulders, ordered it on a Thursday and it was delivered the following Monday very pleased with the bar and EliteFTS.”

Critical

• “I wish EliteFTS would make the long needed improvements to this bar. As you can see in the photo, they originally designed this bar with progressively thinner handles as they go out. To me this is just a gimmick as it doesn’t change the lift or the functionality of the bar, but it does make it more annoying to hold. The widest grip is usually where you’d use the heaviest weight (equivalent to the power rings on a standard bar), and that is where the handles are the thinnest. This places more pressure on a smaller amount of the hand and is quite painful when benching heavy. I have pretty tough hands as I do a lot of manual labor, but it’s still enough to distract me when I’m really just trying to focus on the lift. Otherwise, this bar is pretty sweet. The powdercoat is better than Black Widow’s and Rogues, but the sleeves will still scratch and wear down over time.”
• “Great bar all around. The paint on it scratches off very easily, so if you’re interested in aesthetics you might want to repaint.”

Garage Gym Lab Review

Garage Gym Lab has not yet reviewed this bar.

Other Options

The below barbells were picked as alternatives to the Elitefts American Press Bar: