I'm building a home gym and I'm attempting to do it on the cheap. Even still, I lift a decent amount of weight, so a dirt cheap barbell wasn't going to do. I'd looked at some other barbells costing upwards of $300 or more and couldn't bring myself to spend that on a first home gym bar.I found this bar through some reviews and I really like it. The coating is something I haven't come across before and it's really unique. It feels like any normal barbell would, but with this extra sticky/tacky like feel to it that I really enjoy. The commercial gym bars that I'm used to using were always slick in my hands, so I'd have to load up on chalk or pick the one with the deepest/sharpest knurling. This bar, which comes lightly oiled, felt glued to my hands even before I wiped off the oil without having an aggressive knurling. I only feel the need to use chalk sparingly (mostly out of habit) and I don't have any pulled callouses since the knurling is fairly mild in comparison to the cheese grater like bars I've used in the past.If you like a really deep knurl regardless of the finish then this bar probably isn't for you, but don't let the lack of an aggressive knurl steer you away from this bar for grip reasons, this thing stays planted. It also has the center knurl, which was a lot harder to find than I thought it'd be in this price range. Overall fantastic bar and I'd recommend it to just about every home gym builder looking for a quality bar without sacrificing a big chunk of your budget.
