S-Cubed Bar™: Straight, Strong, Stiff

An extra-long, extra-strong, extra-stiff bar for things like squats—and capable of handling, for example, 1500-pound quarter squats if you can do them.

The Buffalo Bar™

Designed to accommodate the kinds of weights Paul Anderson handled in his prime—with ease, our Buffalo Bar is 92" long overall, which means you don’t have to be a yoga star to get under it for squats, good mornings, lunges, Hise shrugs, and all the other get-big-and-strong movements you do with a bar on your shoulders.

The Buffalo Bar and SUPER SQUATS Hip Belt . . . when you’re ready to quit making excuses and decide to start squatting.

By Dale Clark

Way down this road, in a gym far away
A young man was once heard to say,
“I’ve repped high and I’ve repped low,
No matter what I do, my legs won’t grow.”

He tried leg extensions, leg curls and leg presses, too
Trying to cheat, these sissy workouts he’d do
From the corner of the gym where the big men train,
Through a cloud of chalk in the midst of pain.

Where the big iron rides high and threatens lives,
Where the noise is made with big forty-fives,
A deep voice bellowed as he wrapped up his knees,
A very big man with legs like trees,

Laughing as he snatched another plate from the stack,
Chalking his hands and his monstrous back,
Said, “Boy, stop lying and don’t say you’ve forgotten
Trouble with you is you ain’t been squattin’.”

©Dale Clark 1983.
“Squattin’” was published in MILO: A Journal for Serious Strength Athletes in September 1997, Vol. 5, No. 2. Reprinted with permission.

That’s pretty good advice—to do what your doctor says—but our joke is that the only piece of their doctor’s advice that everyone follows to the T is the admonition not to lift anything heavy: "Oh, I’d love to help you move that couch, but my doctor said . . .”

The same excuses, only more strident, are heard when it comes to squatting, and as Paul Anderson told Randall Strossen, “Most people will use any excuse they can to avoid squatting.” Knees, backs, you name it. Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous should be replaced with hard, hard, hard, which is why they are avoided, avoided, avoided, but also why they make you gain, gain, gain.

Yes, always follow your doctor’s advice, but when it comes to squatting, you should understand that nobody is going to win a Nobel Prize for declaring that squats are the number one way to get big and strong—that’s long since been firmly established.

Apollon’s Axle™... Not Just Another Pretty Face

Not just the original--it debuted in 1994--but the best known and most widely used thick bar in top-tier strongman and grip competitions, the one that has more world records set on it than all the others combined. While the Apollon's Axle excels in strongman and grip, it's also perfect for anyone interested in functional strength.

All IronMind bars and some other pieces of equipment (Apollon’s Axle, Buffalo Bar, S-Cubed Bar, Big Boy Dumbbells, Husky Handle Dumbbells, Wrist Reinforcer, Kettlebells, and Little Big Horn) are made from natural finish steel, which means that if you live in a humid place and don’t keep the surface covered with something that will block moisture, they will rust. We should point out that we don’t know of a lifting bar ever oxidizing to the point of creating a structural risk, so the chief concern has always been cosmetic.

If your bars have already gotten rusty and you want to restore them to their original shiny look, use a light abrasive like steel wool or a Scotch Brite pad (made by 3M) to remove the surface rust. To prevent scratch marks, go around the circumference of the bar (with a twisting motion), rather than sliding up and down the length of the bar. To prevent oxidation you need to block moisture from the surface, and the traditional way to do this is to wipe down the bar with a rag covered with a light oil (WD-40 is the traditional choice here, but any light oil will work, and we know of a guy who swears by car wax). The important thing if you use a lubricant such as WD-40 is to wipe off the excess before you lift, and some people leave the knurling untreated, only cleaning the smooth sections of the bar.

If you want to keep your natural finish IronMind bars nice and shiny, wipe them down as needed with one of these Tuf-Cloths, which is a multi-purpose dry protectant.

Make sure you’re hanging around the right bars: visit our on-line store for more information about our Buffalo Bar, S-Cubed Bar, Apollon’s Axle, and more.

Team your IronMind bars with a proven winner in training information, MILO: A Journal for Serious Strength Athletes.

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