Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 Review – INTENSE Chest Pump or Newest Gimmick?

Last updated on August 30th, 2024 at 11:39 am

Who has two thumbs and likes unique specialty bars? THIS GUY! So when I first saw the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 you KNOW I was intrigued. I chatted with their team for awhile and was sharing some of their posts, sales, and pre-orders.

I was happy to help a new company with a unique offering. But then they sent me their bar for testing purposes. This bar is going to be a real fun science experiment to play around with. Bench, Overhead Press, and maybe some rows? Lets go!

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Transparency Note

Radian was nice enough to send me the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 for sake of a review. I’ve told them that I take my time and tell the truth, and they are excited to see the end result. I don’t have an affiliate or code or anything with them currently. Just a free bar for me to take for a ride down review lane.

FYI – Radian recently listed their barbell on Amazon, so I now have an affiliate process for this bar.

Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 Video Review

Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 Overview

If you’ve checked my gym out over the years, you know I like me a specialty bar or twelve. Out the gate when I saw the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 my mind jumped to “Well, I haven’t seen that before!”. That is a positive right there. I like new things, bars and attachments and options I haven’t experimented with before. Or in this case, haven’t even seen another person use before.

The concept of the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 is that the handles move, instead of your hands being stuck in place. This allows you the freedom to go WIDE at the bottom of a bench press, and go TIGHT at the top. Why would you want that? In theory, we are looking at a nice stretch at the bottom and a GNARLY contraction at the top. That converging motion of the hands is meant to mimic a pair of dumbbells, or even better, a nicely made chest press machine.

So we are already looking at the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 as a hypertrophy first barbell. If your idea of training is to maximize the pump and get some massive pecs, then this bar MIGHT be on your list. The sleeves, the bushings, the end cap, all look like a normal bar. Black cerakote finish throughout to protect the bar from oxidation. The bushings provide the right amount of spin in the sleeves. And the end caps are a subtle black and white contrast logo. I like it. The Radian Sliding Grip Barbell is aesthetically clean and well put together.

The magic sauce shows up in the shaft and the handles. When we unpacked the bar, my daughter called the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 the Unicorn Bar! The swirls and twists and turns act like a screw. The handles can move in and out, without just acting live PVC pipe wrapped around a smooth bar. You have just a little friction to FEEL it, but not enough to slow it down.

The handles have some solid knurling (nothing aggressive, but enough). And the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 as a whole feels well built. The bar has a 300lb weight limit, which sounds low for a barbell, but I’ll get into why that likely is more than enough in a bit. Overall, the construction of the bar is very premium feeling. The color, the aesthetic, the handles, everything flows nicely. This bar, even being as unique as it, doesn’t drastically stand out in a barbell lineup.

Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 Overview Specs

• Brand: Radian
• Made In USA: No
• Dimensions: 7ft 2inches in length
• Weight: 45 lbs
• Weight Capacity: 330 lbs
• Knurling: Yes, moderate knurl
• Finish: Black Cerakote on shaft and sleeves
• Assembly: none
• Refund Policy: 30 day return and refund policy

Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 Performance

I used the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 exclusively for bench variations and overhead press. They do say you can use it for bench variations, overhead press variations, as well as rows, vertical rows and rear delt type raises.

Rows for me felt weird. That converging motion just doesn’t jive. At 6ft tall, the rear delt concept didn’t work, I ran out of room. So I was left with bench and overhead press. As this bars primary target is hypertrophy, and just the general use of the bar, I was aiming for reps in the 8 to 15 range, focused on the technique, feel, and execution. Since my chest is a weak point from a hypertrophy stance and a strength stance, this bar fit in well for my accessory work while running JuggernautAI.

Storage and Racking

Right out the gate one of the biggest issues for me with the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell, was transportation and storage. I store my bars vertically. When stored this way, gravity does its thing and the handles move to their lower position, placing one handle in the middle of the bar, and the other at the very bottom.

If I try and pick the bar up from here, the handles move… Because of course, that is what they are supposed to do. This of course creates some fun scenarios of the bar moving in your hands as you are trying to transport it from storage to the rack.

You might say, well Joe you just need to grab the shaft firmly and get to work. 

Unfortunately, the shaft is lubed up.  So if you grab the lubed shaft, you end up with messy hands.

Oil That Shaft

Lets spend some time talking about oiling your shaft. Radian recommends oiling the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 every couple of weeks to maintain that ideal experience.

Every single time I use the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell, I end up with black marks on my hands. Not exactly my favorite experience. On top of this, if you bench like I typically do and touch the bar to your chest, you might just end up with oil on your shirt. Again, not my favorite experience.

You might say, well Joe, just don’t oil your shaft so much!

Unfortunately, the difference between a well lubed and a dry shaft is night and day. I’ve on purpose gone a few weeks without lubing it up, just to see, and the added friction is less than ideal. Instead of a nice smooth transition back and forth, you end up with this jumpy feeling. So lubing it up and keeping it lubed, is a crucial piece to the puzzle.

Handle Problems

You might notice that the handles move individually, as in, left and right aren’t locked. This is nice, but ends up with one issue. If you don’t start your set perfectly lined up, it is VERY easy to get lopsided from side to side. And since there aren’t any markings noting where to start with the handles, or some kind of distance marker or something, you are really playing the guessing game on every set.

One of the reasons why the converging process on a machine works, is because it often extends the range of motion of your movement or creates a full contraction in the muscle. We definitely get that here with the Radian bar… HOWEVER, a machine is also locked in tight. A chest press has tons of stability built into the machine so you can focus 100% effort into squeezing that pec. Because this bar is both a free weight barbell, AND has moving handles, you lose a lot of built in stability.

So this is far from a machine chest press. To counter that, you are going to need to squeeze those handles TIGHT. Like, grip that shaft until you white knuckle it. This increased stability from your hand will radiate down into your shoulder and create a more intense and focused contraction in the pec.

Because of this, I see some carryover to powerlifting. Often times we grab the bar and let it SIT in our hands, instead of taking advantage of the that full body tension. Much like a Bandbell Bar will rock us if we aren’t owning each and every rep, the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 just simply will not work as well without you hammering that grip. Many have asked, doesn’t this force your shoulders to come up and out of place? Not necessarily. It might encourage it, but you can work to keep them down. Potentially another powerlifting teaching tool.

Now the counter to that in terms of this being a powerlifting bar, is around that 300lb weight limit. When using this bar for sets of 10 to 15 reps, I was maxing out at under 135lbs. Now remember that I bench in the 300s, and can take 225 for a set of 20 on a normal bar. So that is about half the weight for similar reps. So you aren’t likely to be pushing massive weight here.

Chest Gainz Or Chest Gimmick?

This takes me to the next piece, which is really, is the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 a good choice for hypertrophy. This is their main focus, to build muscle, through a strong contraction and nasty pump.

As mentioned, the instability which leads to lower loads, can be troublesome in terms of hypertrophy. All things being equal, more weight for more reps means more stimulation, thus more muscle mass. So you are trading a lot in terms of the total load capability, for the extended range of motion of the converging aspect.

The team at Radian has talked about how this bar is “more difficult” than using dumbbells at the same weight. My argument here, is that difficult, doesn’t automatically translate to muscle growth. Yes, your sets need to be hard, but a one arm push-up off a medicine ball while listening to Kids Bop is a pretty difficult experience, I’m not entirely sure it is conducive to chest gains.

I asked my buddy James, who was a high level competitive powerlifter, is now a jacked hypertrophy focused lifter, is a former teacher and strength coach, working on being a dietitian… So this dude knows a thing or two about lifting, both in the trenches and in the books.

His thoughts were basically summed up as… The instability decreases hypertrophy potential, but the range of motion increases it. We might be at a net neutral.

Obviously we can’t have results without an actual scientific study… oh wait!

They did a pretty small study using EMG to track chest activity, with two female and seven male subjects aged 22 to 49 years old. The sliding bar they used had a 19.5% increase in chest activity compared to a normal barbell. They also claim that the time under tension is greater with this kind of bar versus dumbbells, due to the unique movement patterns.

Now EMG isn’t perfect, because muscle activation doesn’t directly mean muscle growth. AND, that almost 20% increase? That is an average of the 9 athletes, meaning some were WAY more, and others WAY less. And they didn’t explicitly use the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2.

The link above is to an overview of the study, and the author ends the article exactly how I’m going to end this review. They said “If you enjoy using these bars, we don’t see an outright negative at this point, and there might be some potential… so keep going for it”.

And that, honestly, is kind of how I feel across the board with the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2.

So?

There are a few things that I think need to be addressed in a Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V3…

The oiling of the shaft and subsequent oiling of my hands and shirts, somehow addressing the handle start position to be more consistent, and something around making storage a little easier, would be truly ideal upgrades.

But the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 construction is solid, it is a fun and unique bar to use, and I do honestly enjoy using it. I mentioned I used it for bench variations, as well as overhead press work. Let me tell you, that overhead press is HUMBLING. I think the fact that your shoulders are such a mobile joint, and having to stabilize through an extended range of motion in an already unstable movement, is just a REALLY nasty variation. And bench work is legitimately interesting to mix up and tinker with here.

In fact, I think there is a lot of potential for the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 to be used in a number of creative ways. You might have seen my clip of me hooking up my two Beyond Power VOLTRA Is, with some Proloc collars, and using it like a legit machine press. And when I first shared this bar on Instagram, my guy over at The Carter Home Gym had the SAME ideas I did… connecting this bar into the BulletProof VTS system for some Smith Machine Press work…

Other Options On The Market

Oddly enough there are a few other options out there for bars like this. The Butterfly Bar looks to be VERY close to the same thing. The difference? Theirs comes in a few different sizes and costs over $750! WOWZERS! The Barbell 2.0, which clocks in at $599. You’ve got this 1980s website for the IsoBar, not sure if this is still a thing or not? And then the SqueezeBar.

I asked Radian directly about the difference between the other bars on the market, and the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 and they had this to say:

1. Louie Simmons came out with the freak bar many many decades ago which had sliding grips. However that had a very different mechanism. There’s also some brand named iso bar which also has some photos of a sliding grip. We don’t know if it is active.
 
Then came barbell 2.0 (different mechanism), then the squeezebar, then we came out with our V1, then now the V2. The butterfly is the latest, it came a long time after us, as even you may remember when you saw our page first, butterfly didn’t exist at that time. Since butterfly offers multiple length options, we are sure that it comes from a different factory.
 
It is true that the looks may be the same of some of the brands, but it does not translate to same feeling and durability.

How do we know? Because we tested multiple factories sliding grip barbells.
 
What causes the difference in feeling and durability is the bearing orientation of the handles. A lot of these bars run on the same mechanism, but bearing orientation cannot be exactly copied in most situations. So all are different in feeling and durability (upto the best of our knowledge).
 
Our bar is made in china, and we have never ever claimed “made in the USA”.
 
It is the same argument that Rep Fitness and Titan Fitness, both find the best factories in china to get a barbell manufactured. But a black zinc power bar (for example) from Rep is different in feeling and durability compared to the same bar from Titan, even though being very similar in looks.

Wrap Up

Is this your first barbell purchase? Nope! Is this your first specialty bar purchase? Nope! Is this your 5^th specialty bar purchase? Maybe… They have some tweaks they should make for a potential future V3 for sure. But for me, the Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 is going to stick around. You’ll see it peppered into my routines, and if I get new toys I might just mix them together and see what we get.

💲Want a Radian Sliding Grip Barbell V2 for your home gym? Use this link and code GML to save $5

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