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Beyond The EZ Curl: The Football Bar

A new twist in the barbell can help you gain and grow

I've always been a big believer in dumbbell work, and one reason is that compared to a straight barbell it allows for more-natural movement of the limbs for many exercises. Likewise, one reason I limit the number of machine exercises with my clients is that most machines restrict movement of the limbs, often in an unnatural way. A great compromise between a straight bar and dumbbells was the EZ curl bar.

The inventor of the EZ curl bar was Lewis G. Dymeck, who was awarded the patent for it on May 23, 1950. By providing a variety of angles to position the hands, this squiggly barbell enables the user to perform a variety of exercises with less wrist strain. This innovation has had an amazing impact on strength training and bodybuilding, as it provides more stability than dumbbells so that heavier weights can be used. And that's why you'll see many EZ curl bar exercises in my workouts, especially in my book Winning the Arms Race. The EZ curl bar is a winner.

You could say that the next generation of the EZ curl bar is the Football Bar. Mike Bystol, owner of the Chicago Poliquin Performance Center, sent me one of these unique barbells. Whereas the EZ curl bar is primarily used to take the stress off the wrist, the Football Bar goes one step further in that it was designed to also reduce the stress on the shoulders. Many of my colleagues who train NFL players use it regularly with their athletes, as it permits them to use heavy loads in an anatomically safe position.

At 84 inches and with 45 pounds of hi-tensile, hi-yield steel that can support up to 500 pounds, the Football Bar is made up of two separate frames. Each frame provides three grip handles, and the grip angle is quickly modified by rotating the bar 180 degrees. Even though dumbbells can simulate the same grip angles as the Football Bar, a full set of dumbbells requires - and I can tell you this from firsthand experience - a significant financial investment and is not always conducive to training a large number of athletes.

The Football Bar is engineered to reduce stress on the rotator cuff during pressing movements by offering two different grip angles. Both grips, nearly perpendicular and parallel to the bar frame, reduce rotator cuff distress by channeling stress in either of two selected angles. In fact, one reason that the log press is popular among athletes who compete in strongman competition is that the strongman log used in this event has the hands facing each other, instead of the pronated grip required when using a straight bar. This is one reason I've often used the log press when training athletes, especially athletes who have a history of shoulder injuries.

The Football Bar enables you to press the way you would punch in Jeet Kune Do (which means martial artists will love this bar). It is particularly useful when training linemen, as it duplicates many of the upper body movements used in the game.

Because of the dynamics of pressing and pushing movements during athletics, resistance across both shoulders is seldom uniform. With the Football Bar athletes can use an "offset grip," which means one hand would be spaced further from the center point of the barbell. Working with this variation will help athletes build additional power and strength against unevenly distributed resistance.

Numerous exercises can be performed safely and more effectively with the Football Bar, exercises such as biceps curls, bent-over rows and lying triceps presses. Further, one thing you will find when using the Football Bar is that your wrists have to work harder to stabilize the bar, an effect that will enable you to tap into a wider motor-unit pool. But don't just take my word for how great the Football Bar is - let's look at the research!

Examining the Research

In an eight-week training performance study conducted by Thurman Leech, B.A. and Joe LaCroce, M.S., 12 male students, ages 15-17, were divided into three groups of four. These students were high school athletes who had received appropriate instruction on proper lifting for all the exercises. For the bench press exercise one group used the straight bar with standard handgrip and shoulder-width hand spacing (SB); the second used a Football Bar using a thumbs-out, close grip (FB); and the third used a combination of the Football Bar and the straight bar (FB and SB).

Prior to the study, all three groups participated in one week of light bench pressing to ensure proper form was being used in this exercise. All groups performed the same exercises to train the other muscle groups and used the same periodization structure. Here are the percentages of 1RM for the bench press, snatch and clean exercises performed during the study:

Week 1

50, 60, 65 +5 lbs, 65

Week 2

55, 65 +10 lbs, 70 +10 lbs

Week 3

60, 65, 70, 75, 77

Week 4

60, 65, 70, 77, 80

Week 5

65, 70, 75, 80, 85

Week 6

65, 70, 75, 80, 85

Week 7

65, 70, 80, 85, 97

All three groups increased their strength, as you would expect; but there were statistically significant differences in how much each group improved. The straight bar group (SB) experienced the smallest increase at 6.2 percent; the group using both the Football Bar and the straight bar (FB and SB) improved 9.7 percent, while Football Bar group (FB) achieved the greatest improvement: 12.3 percent!

According to the authors of this study, three reasons that the Football Bar group enjoyed greater gains were 1) The triceps brachii and stabilizer muscles were subjected to more-focused training than in the other groups; 2) The muscles used to perform the bench press exercise worked harder than straight-bar training without overtraining, and 3) Strength improved more rapidly because the muscles had to adjust to a new handgrip angle, hand spacing and subsequent elbow positions. The authors also concluded that the study showed that the Football Bar is a "powerful complementary bench press exercise."

You can watch video clips of the Football Bar in action by visiting www.repsdirect.net; and to purchase the bar, contact Joe LaCroce at 800-541-4755 or reps97@hotmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

As a strength coach who is always looking for ways to give his athletes an edge, I can tell you that, like the EZ curl bar, the Football Bar is a training tool that you should not be without!