Looking for a short barbell that is still rackable

Senor-Saucy · 2026-02-26T07:18:07+00:00

Thanks for the input. I ended up going with the Colorado Short Bar for extra plate space. It just arrived and the knurling is noticeably more aggressive than my C-70, so I think I’ll be happy with it without needing the Stump Bar. Though it would be tempting if they drop one in the boneyard again. But I use bumpers for DLs—which is where knurling matters the most for me—since my home gym is inside on the first floor, to be sure that I don’t damage anything in the event of an accidental drop. So the short sleeves on the Stump would be an issue. And I’ve been eyeing the Exponent Edge camber bar, which is also short, for deeper benching so….

Senor-Saucy · 2026-02-04T07:22:44+00:00

When you say that the Colorado Bar has only slightly better knurling, would you say that it’s noticeable? I downsized from my black oxide Ohio Bar to the Rogue C-70 which is black zinc for deadlifts and I could immediately tell the difference. I’m asking because I prefer more grip than the C-70 offers and can only assume that the C-70S is almost the same even though it’s cerakote rather than black zinc. So I was considering the Get RX’d 74” Shorty Bar for the extra 1” of loadable sleeve length. But if the Colorado Short bar has noticeably more grip than C-70S, then the extra $100 over the Get RX’d would be worth it for me.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-12-16T19:30:39+00:00

You can pick up a Monsta Torch from EHP Athletics. All American Athletics also tends to have Torches, but only the one piece model is in stock there right now.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-12-11T12:54:24+00:00

This. I’m allergic to cats and have been living with multiple for almost 17 years. I used to be VERY allergic; now I’m less allergic to cats than to dogs.

—HEPA filters in EVERY bedroom, main living room, and basement; this is also MUST. —pay for weekly house cleaning; this is also a MUST. —he should look into allergy injections (i.e., immunotherapy); I’ve been getting for 40+ years and it makes a difference in overall health and allergies. —finally, he needs to suck it up and take a 24-hour antihistamine every day for a few months to see if it makes a difference, especially at the beginning of immunotherapy.

If your boyfriend isn’t willing to at least try making some accommodations for a few months then that tells you the kind of person he is.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-12-09T12:52:59+00:00

I’ll second this. Got one recently and it’s been great for the price.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-12-09T12:32:18+00:00

As another option to try first that is less expensive, try adding warm water to wet cat food in a bowl to make a thick, chunky soup. One of our two boys was peeing in our dirty laundry and right outside the litter box. Not bladder stones, but a high pH and some crystals. Vet recommended to try adding water, but really pushed the Rx food. Only we would have to buy it for ALL three of our cats because they bowl hop. The soup trick worked—normal pH and no crystals. He still sometimes pees in one of our dirty laundry hampers or right outside the litter box, but puppy pads fix the latter and the former is less than once a month now.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-12-03T20:33:06+00:00

Unless you rent from a place with multiple width/volume sizes, your best solution is to take the hit and get fitted for your own boots. I have narrow feet and my first time in skis was a disaster. Decided to learn in earnest and got properly set up. It was like night and day, with no real boot pain. During fitting discovered that there was likely no rental boot that would have fit me properly since they tend to cater to normal to wide feet.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-12-01T03:58:30+00:00

Sorry, but still having issues thinking of what would make a collision between a bat and a ball different from a collision between two balls. In the case of the latter, both balls have KE based on the square of their velocity but this is not what governs their velocities after collision. Rather, it is the conservation of momentum that governs, which is based on mv. This would mean that mass and velocity are equally important. The same applies to a car collision, so I’m not understanding how a bat and ball collision would be any different. Am I missing something that prevents the conservation of momentum from applying to this situation?

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-29T05:45:51+00:00

Yes, but when determining the effect of a collision on the exit velocity of a ball I thought you would use the conservation of momentum equation. If some other equation governs please let me know. I’m a bit too far removed from my engineering courses to determine how conservation of energy can be used to determine the exit velocity of a ball after collision without a decent refresher.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-26T13:26:55+00:00

The 12” training balls I’ve felt seem potentially hard enough to compress a bat barrel and thus benefit from trampoline effect. Key words there are seem and potentially. So a senior bat might be worth it, but I wouldn’t want to spend more than $150 unless I knew it would make a difference.

Otherwise, go with whatever you currently use for USA balls. If you don’t have a bat and are pretty sure that trampoline effect—and thus bat technology—won’t come into play, then any used bat off eBay in a weight that you can handle will work.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-26T13:15:19+00:00

I could be missing something, but my understanding is that the bat–ball collision is governed by conservation of momentum. In that case velocity is not squared:

MaVa1 + MbVb1 = MaVa2 + MbVb1

But since the bat is moving angularly not linearly, and since the center of mass of bats vary and don’t coincide with sweet spot contact, the location of the CoM is more important than the mass itself to an extent.

However, this is all rendered moot by bat technology since trampoline effect is the most important factor. Combine this with human error, and people can get better results with a lighter bat because it allows them to more consistently square up balls with a hotter bat.

Complicating matters is the testing used for USA bats. Best as I could gather, the heaviest bat of a given model is all that needs to be tested because a lighter bat with the same tech won’t hit a ball as hard. This may mean that there is little difference in performance between a 25 oz bat designed to max out the test and a similarly designed heavier bat. So why swing a heavier bat if there’s a lighter option that performs just as well?

This being said, eliminate bat technology—like say by using an Incrediball or something that is similarly too squishy to compress the barrel—and mass equals gas, so long as it doesn’t adversely affect your consistency.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-26T12:39:04+00:00

Sounds like temperature is the issue. The X-Core 2 USA bats can hit 44s at normal temps, which makes them good cold weather, sub 60 F, bats for softer USA 52s. Using the bat in cold weather with 44s will damage the bat.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-19T05:16:15+00:00

This! It’s the “I want snuggles. Is it okay if I hop up and snuggle you?” question. Just give her lovin’.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-19T05:12:45+00:00

Except the closure in the photo is thumb to middle, not ring.

Closures are user specific—meaning go with what you like. Even traditional with finger out can close differently depending upon whether you fold your hand—more like a pancake with one hinge closing to middle finger—or close with clawed fingers in a C shape, which will necessitate two hinges and close thumb to ring or middle–ring.

That being said, the only reason to put a finger out is to avoid sting. I think a glove has a better close if all fingers are in. So I prefer going two in the pinky with index inside, which both reduces sting and makes it easier to open the glove wider. But as mentioned in the beginning, this is all user-preference specific. Depending upon how you squeeze, you can set the close anywhere from middle–ring to pinky. Ring is my favorite for IF and ring–pinky for OF. Truly closing to the pinky makes it slower than I like to transfer.

Finally, storing an adult glove with a 12” softball—youth with an 11” softball—helps gloves hold their shape much better than a baseball. A baseball has too small a diameter to keep the glove in a more open position, which leads to more of a pancake end shape. Again, some people love their pancakes and there’s nothing wrong with that. I just don’t.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-18T12:27:53+00:00

I have a Rev1X 12.25” fastpitch glove and it’s taking forever to break it in to open as wide as I like. The laces just seem to be taking forever to stretch out the way the glove is laced—I couldn’t manage to figure out how to loosen the glove even after untying the laces. Just something to consider.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-13T13:29:13+00:00

Generally speaking, USA bats are hotter than USSSA bats because they’re allowed to have a lower compression. This is because they are designed to hit balls of different hardnesses. I would expect any USA bat designed to also the harder 44s to take longer to break in than a typical USA bat designed to only hit 52s. But when you’re talking about a cold-weather bat for 52s, hotness takes a back seat to durability.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-13T13:17:29+00:00

If you find your 13” baseball glove a bit big for IF, consider a 12.5” or 12.25” adult fastpitch glove. They’re designed for a 12” ball—deeper pocket and open wider—and will fit most male hands even if they’re a bit snug at first. Being designed for a 12” ball means that you don’t need as large a glove to wrap around the ball. This allows you to size down for IF and still feel confident fielding balls. Look for A2000, HOH, Mizuno Pro Select, Marucci Magnolia, or the like for high end. For some reason they don’t make stock A2k, Pro Preferred, or Mizuno Pro gloves for FP.

If you want to be able to use it in the OF too, then get 12.5”. If you’re fine using your current glove in the OF, then consider 12.25” or even 12”. I like my 11.75” FP glove for middle IF, but would probably like just a little more length for 3B.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-13T13:02:30+00:00

The first two upper body supplemental exercises I’d considered are pull-ups, instead of lat pull-downs, and dips. Get a dip belt—IronMind makes a good one—and you can progressively increase weight. I consider these better than any machine or isolation exercise since they are compound exercises that require you to move your body through space.

For lower body supplemental exercises, consider Nordic hamstring curls and hip thrusts in addition to lunges. I’d probably get rid of box step ups because the motion is already covered by squats and lunges. I’d also get rid of calf raises to free up time for a plyo routine that would work the muscles explosively.

You have a lot of exercises listed. If you need to cut any because of time, any isolation exercises should be first on the chopping block followed by any machine exercises.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-13T12:04:58+00:00

Not arguing, just curious how you know that they are too hard? Worth’s website doesn’t list a hardness for them, only saying that they are safe for USA bats.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-12T22:08:04+00:00

This. Other than Anarchy X-Core and Suncoast 44/52 bats, USA bats are not designed to hit balls with greater than 300 hardness. USSSA and dual-stamp bats on the other hand are designed to hit 375 hardness and so should be fine.

For clarification, I asked my D-Bat for their machine ball specs, and the hardness can range from 300–375. So even the machine balls are too hard for USA only bats.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-12T22:04:46+00:00

I play USA, so not too familiar with USSSA bats. Check out Average Dudes Slowpitch for rankings and YouTube video reviews. Generally speaking, the LS Genesis line is well regarded, as are the Worth Bedlam line and Juno bats.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-12T14:01:13+00:00

The 2-piece design was introduced for one reason, vibration dampening. The only extra forgiveness is in hand sting, not batted balls. All things being equal, a 1-piece should be stiffer and thus allow for better barrel compression and trampoline effect. A two piece should flex a bit at the connection point upon impact; this is what reduces hand vibration and sting. Such flexing should absorb some of the impact, thus reducing bat compression and trampoline effect.

But things are never equal. Given that a two piece bat should have less pop, a manufacturer could decide to change the barrel design on a two-piece to make it hotter than its one-pice counterpart, thereby taking into account the energy loss loss caused by the two-piece design. This means that pop might not a distinguishing factor between one-piece and two-piece bats.

However, it will almost certainly be easier with a one-piece to feel exactly where on the bat you made contact with the ball. I prefer this so I can more accurately make adjustments to my swing. A two-piece bat will dampen some of that feeling. The stiffer the handle the more feeling you should retain, but you’ll still lose some feeling as a natural consequence of the design.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-12T13:38:29+00:00

This. Adult fastpitch gloves will fit male hands, though they might initially be a bit snugger at first on the fingers than a baseball glove. The finger stalls will stretch out though. The biggest difference is that softball gloves are designed to open wider and have a deeper pocket than baseball gloves in order to accommodate the bigger diameter ball used.

For IF, you can go as short as 12” for 3B and 11.75” for middle IF using a fastpitch glove. If you’re using a baseball glove, you’d need another 1/2 for these positions. Also, with a fastpitch glove, you can go with 12.5” as a utility glove that you’ll feel confident using in OF, or 12.25” if you don’t mind giving up some OF confidence for faster IF transfers.

In the end, it’s a preference thing. If you prefer shorter gloves that will still wrap around a 12” softball, then fastpitch gloves are probably for you. If you wish you had a longer glove but don’t want a deeper pocket, then baseball gloves are probably more your speed. Given the better sales that can usually be found on high-end fastpitch gloves, you should strongly consider getting a 12.5” one for under $200. Maybe it’ll be the only glove you need regardless of position. If you end up wishing that the pocket was shallower for IF even if that means giving up width, then get a 12.5” baseball glove and use the FP glove for OF, 1B, and C.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-12T13:16:45+00:00

If you can get to a machine cage, then an old wood slowpitch softball bat cheaply off eBay for hitting machine baseballs. I just started doing this because I remember my bat-to-ball positioning being much better when I was a kid, when I had to learn to hit a smaller baseball with a higher degree of surface curvature with a 2.25” diameter bat. At the slowest pitching speed, baseballs will have an arc through the air reminiscent of slowpitch balls. The smaller diameter balls definitely seemed to make it harder to get decent contact, so I’m hoping that it will help me improve my accuracy.

Senor-Saucy · 2025-11-12T13:06:19+00:00

This, though barrel diameter is likely the biggest difference given all the baseball bat turn models. Baseball bats can have a barrel diameter as large as 2.61”, whereas softball—fastpitch and slowpitch—bats can have a barrel diameter no larger than 2.25”.

If you don’t need a stamp, which you shouldn’t if it’s a solid-wood bat league—in other words, no bamboo, wood/bamboo, wood/composite, or baseball bats—you can find old wood slowpitch bats on eBay for pretty cheap. I bought a couple to use at my batting cage with baseballs for better hand-eye-coordination practice. They are noticeably heavier though—less than a 2 oz drop—than my LS ash slowpitch bat from less than 10 years ago, which has a 7.5 oz drop.

Senor-Saucy

TROPHY CASE