Gear Review: ForceUSA Walkthough Trap Bar Review and Install

ForceUSA Walkthrough Trap Bar

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This bar ships in a box, so it arrived quickly and it requires assembly. Assembly is a 1 person job if you are mechanically inclined. This is a plus as most companies do not have an open trap bar design bar available at all, and if they sell one, it's either out of stock or it's waiting for a custom build with a lead time with shipping of many weeks. There are some downsides to this method though I'll mention later.

Upon first inspection, the trap bar itself feels sturdy, and it weighs 60 lbs. The welding on the corners is not up to the quality of what we expect from American Barbell or Rogue Fitness, there are imperfections and even certain corners that aren't fully closed. However the rigidity of the bar itself is not in question to me. 

The hardware is high grade and appears to be stainless steel. Though for some reason it's all in the hex key format. The brackets for the handles are strong and the handles are free floating as well, which creates an interesting feeling when lifting with this bar. The diameter is larger than my preference, seems like 32mm rather than 28mm though not positive. You have the option of lifting with 2 different height handles as well which is a convenient feature. The assembly of the handles is straightforward as well. You can see the basic components below.

One of the best features of this bar is the jack feature, where you can lift it up on its side, which makes it super easy to slide on and off all the weightplates. In practice it is fantastic. 

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As you put the brackets for the handles together it starts looking like this.

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Then you assemble the barbell sleeves and the trap bar handles on the brackets with the components below. The handles assemble nicely and feel very sturdy. See photo on bottom right. 

And that leads to the rub that I have with this product. These bolt on "sleeves." Also known as the down side of having this thing delivered in  a box. The compromise is the sleeves. The barbell sleeves are my least favorite part of this bar. I am not used to hollow, bolt on barbell sleeves. (bottom left photo) Not only are they hollow but also conspicuously short.
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​Even the bolts, while of decent girth are short IMO for their intended purpose. The sleeve diameter is not even standard, too much play with the weightplates, and normal OSO collars don't work, so you're forced to use spring collars. The components even when assembled do not feel as sturdy as I had expected. These are not real barbell sleeves if you know what I mean. I even had a little difficulty with the outside end of the sleeve and getting these torqued to my satisfaction with the tools and hardware provided. 

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The bar is rated for up to 660 Lbs. I have no doubt that the limiting point is just the sleeves. The rest of the bar is probably good for much more. I am pleased with the balance and sturdiness of the product.

Despite not being a fan of the components and design of the sleeves, let me be clear though that once the sleeves were assembled, they seemed to perform adequately during my testing. It did not feel like the sleeves would break or struggled to support loading up to 150 lbs on each side, and I believe I could put another 100 on each sleeve without worry. That would be 250 + 250 + 60 which comes out to 560 and it's rated to 660. My impression is that it would start getting iffy around that point in my judgement. Most won't ever need to lift this much though so unless you're a hardcore competitor, this will work just fine. In other words, the performance of the sleeves in testing was better than I had anticipated and this calmed my hesitancy about the sleeves.

​The sleeves look like this when assembled, with another bolt coming in from the end of the sleeve. (not pictured here)​

Final product looks like this, and it is really fun to lift with. The hardware looks nice and it defintely gets attention when people see it as well. Overall I like it and I'm glad I got it and took a chance on this product. One day though I may upgrade to one that doesn't have bolt on sleeves like this. I am happy with it though. 

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