Are Barbells Dangerous?
By: Zach Colangelo
Is resistance training using barbells inherently dangerous compared to other forms of physical activity?
The short answer is “no” but since many of you may not have experience using barbells I wanted to explain in greater detail about why they are useful and the safety of resistance training.
We believe a good place to start when addressing the “dangers” of resistance training more specifically, barbell training is to look at other sports that most may not think twice about. Let’s take running for example, according to Van Mechelen (1992), “…2.5 to 12.1 injuries per 1000 hours of running…About 50 to 75% of all running injuries appear to be overuse injuries due to the constant repetition of the same movement”. If you tuned into our first podcast, I stated the importance of expanding our “exercise library”. The more movements and exercises we expose our bodies to the more prepared we will be for daily life.
Another example by Hootman, J, et al. (2007), looked at 15 different sports. Men’s football has the most injuries per 1000 hours at 35.9, women’s soccer (16.4), men’s basketball (9.9), and women’s softball being the lowest rated at 4.3 injuries per 1000 hours. I think it is safe to say these sports were included in a majority of our childhood and young adulthood.
How do these sports compare to resistance training?
Resistance training has a couple of different categories, a review by, Aasa, U, et al. (2016), looks at powerlifting. Individuals who participate in the sport of powerlifting will focus mainly on the bench press, back squat, and deadlift, which are all completed using the barbell. These three exercises will be the foundation of our strength training portion of each group fitness session. We chose these exercises because they are easier to learn technically speaking and are low-velocity barbell lifts, meaning, the bar will have maximal loading and move relatively slower but with the intent to lift the bar as fast as possible through a full range of motion building maximal effort strength.
There were 9 studies included in the review, concluded the injury incidence in powerlifting is 1.0–4.4 injuries per 1000 hours. It could be concluded, compared to sports, resistance training can be upwards of 8x safer than football, 3.7x safer than soccer, 2.7x safer than running, 2.25x safer than basketball, and a similar safety level to softball.
Why are barbells useful?
Reason #1: Ability to load the bar more than dumbbells, kettlebells, and/or exercise machines.
Reason #2: Barbells take up very little space & having the ability to have 10+ people using the barbells in a limited space is both time and cost efficient.
Reason #3: Barbells are versatile. The number of exercises we can do with the barbell is endless and the ability to bring a barbell with us on vacation or a work trip is unique compared to a treadmill or a leg press machine. I can name 20 different exercises we can do with a barbell just for the legs alone!
Reason #4: Stability. It is easier to stabilize a barbell than two dumbbells. You may be wondering, “Zach, I was so unstable using the barbell this week” I would have to agree, but only because you have never used a barbell. The more we expose ourselves to the barbell the easier it will be to control the weight compared to dumbbells. Think of it this way, with the barbell bench press, our arms are working together but with a dumbbell bench press, they are separate forcing us to think about two things at once.
How does the injury risk of resistance training compare to other daily tasks?
Gardening: 1.1 +/- 0.4 per 1000 hours (Powell, K E et al. 1998)
Walking: 1.1 +/- 0.5 per 1000 hours (Powell, K E et al. 1998)
Spring Cleaning: 8.4 per 1000 hours (Saadat, S., & Karbakhsh, M. (2011)
Takeaways
Resistance training is one of the safest things we can do with and for our bodies.
Exercise can be like sports in the sense that it takes practice, so if you are unsure about using the barbell, give it a few more tries and trust.
The more we can expose our bodies to the more we can be prepared for.
Daily tasks we don’t think twice about are just as dangerous as resistance training.
Resistance training is a healthy lifestyle choice, it should be enjoyable but a never ending pursuit to improve.
In health,
Protocol10 Team