Swiss Bar Guide: Weight, Exercises and Swiss Bar vs Straight Bar

A Swiss bar is a barbell with several pairs of parallel handles set inside an open frame, so you hold it with your palms facing each other instead of gripping a straight shaft. You'll also see it sold as a football bar or a multi-grip bar. Full-length Olympic versions usually weigh 15kg to 25kg and take 2 inch plates, while shorter 1 inch "tricep bars" weigh around 5kg to 10kg. Its main job is pressing and rowing with a neutral grip, which many lifters find easier on their shoulders and elbows than a straight bar.

For a home gym that already has a barbell and a rack, it's one of the more useful second bars you can add. It doesn't replace your straight bar, though, and the cheap short versions are a different tool altogether.

What a Swiss bar actually is

Picture a standard barbell where the middle section has been swapped for a ladder. The two long rails run parallel, and short cross handles sit between them at different widths. On most bars you get three or four grip widths, and some angle the handles slightly so your wrists sit somewhere between neutral and pronated.

The GYM MASTER Olympic bar is a fair example of the full-size design. It's 220cm long with 50mm sleeves, lists grip spacings of roughly 30cm, 49cm and 70cm, and has a slight camber so the handles sit a little lower than the sleeves. That camber lets you bring the bar a touch deeper on presses and rows.

Cheaper "multi-grip tricep bars" look similar but are built for arm work. They're short (often around 85cm), take 1 inch plates and are light enough to swing around for hammer curls and extensions.

How much does a Swiss bar weigh?

There isn't one standard weight, which is the most common source of confusion. Unlike an Olympic straight bar, nobody regulates Swiss bars, so the figure depends on how thick the frame is and how long the bar runs.

Bar type	Typical weight	Plates	Length
Olympic Swiss / football bar	15kg to 25kg	2 inch (50mm)	Often around 220cm
1 inch multi-grip tricep bar	5kg to 10kg	1 inch (25mm)	Around 80cm to 100cm
Men's Olympic straight bar (for reference)	20kg	2 inch	220cm
Olympic EZ bar (for reference)	7kg to 10kg	2 inch	Around 120cm

Two real listings bear this out. GYM MASTER quotes approximately 18.5kg for its Olympic Swiss bar, and Mirafit lists its 1 inch tricep bar at about 8kg. If you log your training properly, stick the bar on a set of bathroom scales once and write the number on a strip of tape. Our guides to barbell weights and EZ bar weight cover the other bars in a typical home gym.

Why the neutral grip is kinder on shoulders and elbows

On a straight bar your forearms are locked into a palms-down position, and on the bench press most people end up with a fairly wide grip and flared elbows. A Swiss bar turns your palms inward. That makes it almost automatic to use a closer hand position and keep your elbows tucked nearer your sides.

Does that actually matter? A 2024 modelling study of experienced lifters doing 21 bench press variations found that grips narrower than 1.5 times shoulder width reduced compression at the acromioclavicular joint and cut rotator cuff activity and some shear forces at the main shoulder joint (Noteboom et al., Frontiers). That's evidence about grip width on a straight bar, not a trial of the Swiss bar itself, and we haven't found one. But a neutral grip is the easiest way to press narrow without your wrists feeling twisted, which is why coaches reach for this bar when someone's shoulder grumbles on flat bench.

There's a cost. A separate study comparing narrow, medium and wide bench grips found both novices and trained men lifted less with the narrow grip, and triceps activity was lower with the wide grip than the narrow or medium (Saeterbakken et al.). Expect your Swiss bar press to come in below your normal bench, and expect your triceps to feel it.

Elbows tend to like the neutral position too, especially on curls and extensions, although that's based mostly on lifter feedback rather than controlled data. If you have an actual injury, see a physio first; a different bar won't fix a torn tendon.

Best Swiss bar exercises

You can use a Swiss bar for most upper-body barbell lifts. These are the ones where it genuinely beats a straight bar.

Bench press and floor press

The headline exercise. Use the middle handles, tuck your elbows to roughly 45 degrees, lower to your lower chest and press. If unracking is awkward or you train alone, the floor press works brilliantly with this bar: the floor limits the range, so your shoulders never drop into the stretched bottom position at all. It also overlaps heavily with the close-grip bench press as a triceps builder.

Overhead press

A neutral grip lets your elbows sit in front of the bar rather than flared out to the side, and lots of people find this the only way they can press overhead without a pinch at the front of the shoulder. Start lighter than your usual overhead press; balancing the frame takes a few sessions to get used to.

Rows

Bent-over and chest-supported rows with a neutral grip shift a little more work to the lats and let you pull the bar into your stomach without your wrists rolling. The narrow handles feel close to a cable row handle with far more load available.

Curls and skull crushers

Neutral-grip curls are basically barbell hammer curls, hitting the brachialis and brachioradialis hard. For skull crushers, the closest handles keep your wrists stacked and spare the elbows compared with a straight bar. A light 1 inch tricep bar does this job well; you don't need the big Olympic frame for arm work.

Sets and reps

Treat Swiss bar pressing like any main lift: 3 to 5 sets of 5 to 8 reps, twice a week, adding a small amount of weight when every rep looks clean. Rows and arm work suit 3 sets of 8 to 15. The NHS recommends strength work on at least two days a week, and swapping a couple of your pressing sessions onto this bar fits neatly into that.

Swiss bar vs straight bar vs EZ bar

Short version: a straight bar is still your main barbell, an EZ bar is for arms, and the Swiss bar is for neutral-grip pressing and rowing.

	Straight Olympic bar	EZ bar	Swiss bar
Grip	Pronated, any width	Semi-supinated, angled	Neutral, fixed widths
Best for	Squat, deadlift, bench, press	Curls, skull crushers	Pressing and rowing around sore shoulders
Rackable	Yes	Usually too short	Full-length versions, yes
Typical weight	20kg	7kg to 10kg	15kg to 25kg
Load capacity	High	Low to moderate	Moderate to high

Choose a straight bar first if you only own one. It does everything, including squats and deadlifts, which a Swiss bar simply can't. If you'd mainly like better arm training, an EZ bar costs less and fits in a cupboard. Add a Swiss bar once your shoulders, elbows or boredom start limiting your pressing.

Olympic Swiss bar vs 1 inch tricep bar

These get lumped together on Amazon and they shouldn't be. An Olympic Swiss bar is a full-length piece of equipment you rack in a cage and load with heavy plates; a 1 inch tricep bar is a hand-held arm-training tool.

The 1 inch type is short, light and cheap, and it only takes standard 1 inch plates. Mirafit lists its version at 85cm long with 20cm sleeves and a 150kg rating. That's plenty for curls and extensions, but you can't rack it, so bench pressing anything heavy is out unless you're happy to floor press from a dead start.

If your home gym runs on 2 inch Olympic plates and a power rack, go Olympic. If you have a set of 1 inch spinlock plates and want something for arm day, the tricep bar does that job for a fraction of the price.

What to check before you buy

• Rack fit. Measure the inside gap between your J-hooks or uprights, then compare it with the distance between the bar's inner collars. The open frame is much wider than a straight shaft and can catch on narrow uprights. Bells of Steel specifically mentions wider clearance on its current Arch Nemesis for 3x3 inch racks, which tells you this is a real problem on some designs. Our squat rack guide lists rack widths if you're still choosing.
• Loadable sleeve length. Longer sleeves hold more plates. GYM MASTER quotes 44.5cm of loadable sleeve, which is plenty for most home lifters. Short sleeves fill up quickly with bumper plates.
• Load capacity. Look for a stated rating comfortably above what you'll press. The two Olympic bars below list about 272kg and 350kg, while the 1 inch Mirafit bar is rated to 150kg.
• Sleeve type. Many Swiss bars use fixed, non-rotating sleeves. That's fine for presses and rows, but it means the plates won't spin. Check the collar diameter too, because a 49mm to 50mm sleeve takes normal Olympic collars.
• Grip widths and camber. Three or four handle widths cover most people. A cambered bar gives extra range of motion on rows and presses, while a flat one is easier to balance.

Swiss bars worth considering

These are current Amazon UK listings we've checked against our product data. We haven't tested them ourselves; the notes below come from the manufacturers' published specs.

The GYM MASTER Olympic Cambered Multi Grip Swiss Bar is the sensible all-rounder for a home rack. It's 220cm long, around 18.5kg, rated to 350kg, and offers three angled grip widths with 44.5cm of loadable sleeve. Collars aren't included, so budget for a pair. It was listed at £79.99 when we checked.

Check price on Amazon

The Bells of Steel Arch Nemesis Swiss Bar is the premium pick, with a 600lb (about 272kg) rating, more aggressive knurling and a cambered arch. Its sleeves are steel tubing that doesn't rotate, sized at 49.7mm so standard Olympic collars fit. At £129.99 it costs a fair bit more, and stock was down to a single unit when we looked, so it may come and go.

Check price on Amazon

The Mirafit 1 inch Multi Grip Tricep Bar is the budget arm-training option rather than a true rackable Swiss bar. At around 8kg, 85cm long and rated to 150kg, with spinlock collars included, it's ideal for hammer curls and extensions with 1 inch plates. It was £29.99 at the time of writing.

Check price on Amazon

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