The Best Budget Safety Squat Bar is ONLY $300? Bells of Steel SS4 Review

Introduction

Safety squats bars can be some of the cheapest and most space efficient options when it comes to adding more variety to lower body training, especially for home gyms. The Bells of Steel SS4 is another quality safety squat bars option, with features like interchangeable and different handles, thick and comfortable padding, rotating bearing sleeves, and more, it differs from and even improves upon, some key areas compared to the competition. So let’s check it out!

Hey guys this is Michael with The Jungle Gym Reviews, today we are reviewing one of my favorite safety squat bars I’ve owned, and that is the Bells of Steel SS4. I’ve owned and have been using the SS4 for almost a year now and it has quickly gone from just being a purchase I made largely due to price and necessity, into one of my go to specialty bar options for my training.

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Why Get a SSB

So as I mentioned I bought this out of necessity and I wanted to quickly talk about what is a safety squat bar in general and why you should get one or would want to use one.

I think pretty self-explanatory from looking at the design, but a Safety Squat Bar, or SSB, is clearly different from a traditional barbell. Rather than a straight bar sitting across your traps,  safety squat bar is designed to have the bar sit in the same approximate area but allows you to grip and stabilize the bar from the handles at the front of your torse rather than having to have your arms and hands grab the bar behind you, like in a traditional barbell squat. This makes these bars a great option for people with shoulder or mobility issues or injuries that don’t allow them to be able to rest a metal bar directly across their shoulders and be comfortably grab and support it.

The other reason you would want one is that safety squat bars have a camber which typicallys shift the center of gravity and weight distribution little forward in the squat from where a typical barbell would be, which makes the overall movement a little harder because you really have to fight to stabilze and keep your torso upright, which also strengthens some of your upper back as well. To me safety squat bars fall somewhere in between a high bar squat and a front squat, depending on the specific bar camber and/or where you choose to hold the handles when squatting which are all factors to make the movement a bit harder or easier depending on your preferences and goals.

Some safety squat bars you can even use hands free, like you can here with this SS4 because of the even front to back weight distribution once it is resting correctly on your shoulders.

Interchangeable Handles

So one of the main features of this bar is the fact it has easily interchangeable handles options. By default it comes with these nicely knurled, standard short straight handles, which are the typical grip choice for most safety squat bars. These are not too passive and not too knurled or peaky. My straight handles have 4 inches of grip space from the bottom of the pad to the end of the handles but on the Bells of Steel website they now include longer handles with 7.25 inches of usable length instead. They also have an option for what they call spider handles which extend the handle length longer and lower while having a slight bend at the bottom and being about which are about 16 inches of usable length. These could be good for people with shoulder or upper body injuries that require them to keep their arms more to their side rather than up towards their chest or even just help get their core and torse better braced. Then they have the chain handles, which create a more challenging overall squat movement because you not able to use your hands to support and distribute any of the bar weight as you can with fixed handles. Instead this shifts the focus to your balance which can be good for improving technique and adding variety. These chain handles are about 13 inches long of usable length.  

The last handle option they have are the 90 degree seal row handles which in theory allow you to turn your bar upside down, and use it a neutral grip rowing movement, but I don’t own those and haven’t personally tried them. For the seal row handles, I don’t know how you would really have room to get full arm extension plus the bar length and somehow still have some chest support like an actual seal row without touching the ground, maybe it works – but I can’t speak much to that one.

Weight, Length, Weight Capacity

So after owning a handful of other safety squat bars over the years, one of the big reasons I chose this SS4 particularly is because the bar weighs approximately 45 pounds. Previous bars I have owned weigh anywhere from 55 to almost 70LBS. Everyone who owns a safety squat bar knows when they are heavy and they can be very awkward to move, story and carry. Not to mention moderately annoying, at least for me, to try to do mental plate math on, so 45 LBS is the ideal weight and sweet spot for me considering both of those reasons. However, I also want to mention that despite the reduced weight of this bar, it still boasts a weight capacity at 1500LBS which is the same as the REP Fitness and Titan Fitness versions which do weigh about 10-15 pounds more than this one. 

Coupled with the lighter overall weight compared to others, this SS4 also has a shorter overall length then those two I mentioned as it’s about as long as a standard barbell at 86.6 inches. This was another big pro for me, since I mainly use this in my single car garage gym where width is a factor, because the extra 4-6 inches of length compared to similar bars make it easier for me to get around the bar and rack and unrack the weights with my space constraints.

One other thing to note about the width is that the distance between the shoulder pads is 9 inches and the padding itself is 5 inches in diameter.

Shaft and Sleeves

Now since the overall length of the bar is slightly shorter, that space clearly to come from somewhere. The main interior width of the bar is still plenty wide and will fit on all racks up to 49 inches wide which includes Rogue and of course the Bells of steel racks. The length difference instead is effectively taken out of the sleeves which have approximately 11.8 inches of loadable length. I would say for about 98% of people this is a non-issue. Depending on specifics if you use bumpers, iron plates, and/or the specific versions of each, you still have plenty of room to load anywhere from 405 with bumper plates to well over 500LBS depending on the specific width of some metal or calibrated plates. If you are super strong or concerned that this will be an issue, my advice is just to go measure the width of your plates and the barbell collars you plan to use to see how much you can load.

The sleeves themselves are another reason I personally like this bar for two main reasons: number 1, they are 50mm diameter which is the same as most standard Olympic barbells, which means, unlike some other safety squat bars, you don’t need to use or purchase an axle bar collar which is slightly larger than 50MM. Second reason I like these is because they have needle bearings which means the sleeves can freely spin to accommodate the dynamic weight distribution of your plates and your body during the movement. In my opinion is just makes for a more refined overall safety squat bar experience because it distributes the weight and force more evenly through the movement like a normal barbell would.

The sleeves also just look really nice, they have a very sleek dark gray titanium finish which makes it very durable but also gives a nice contrast from the rest of the bar. I also wanted to mention the actual shaft of the bar itself is black and 32mm in diameter, so it should fit on most J cups, but if you use roller Jcups you probably want to check it will accommodate this bar depending on it’s specific design.

Price

Now with all these well thought out features, this has to be an expensive bar right? Well the best part is, no. In fact, it’s one of, if not the cheapest one you can buy right now, especially considering the frequent sales or 10% off coupons that are typically available at bells of steel with email signup or similar. The price of this bar with the included straight handles is $320 but as I mentioned with a coupon takes it to $290 which makes it cheaper than the $300 Titan one as well. This Bells of Steel one comes with the straight knurled handles by default in that $320 price, and you can purchase the additional handle options anywhere from $30-50 dollars and but you can purchase them a la carte as needed later if you want.

What are some of the other options

As as I mentioned this will be the 4th safety squat bar that I have owned over the last few years. I originally owned the Titan SSB V2, but the rubber coated handles on mine kept falling off which was a major gripe of mine. Then I swapped to the REP Fitness safety squat bar when that came out a couple years ago, but once I relocated to my single car garage gym, the added length of that bar at 92.5 inches and the 70LB overall bar weight made it more difficult to manuever and walk around the bar ends to take plates on and off in my tight space. I also was a little disappointed that REP hadn’t released any additional handle options despite teasing or there would be some coming after the original release. Then came the jump to the new Rogue x Kabuki transformer bar which was actually an awesome bar with a lot versatility. I really enjoyed using thar bar with the different handles and especially all the angle and difficulty options. The downside for that bar, besides being over twice as expensive as these options, is that it is hard to store, and ultimately the storage issue, coupled with the fact I needed to take out a second mortgage just to own that bar, ultimately made me sell it until I got a different version, this Bells of Steel one, which has been going strong now for almost a year. 

Overall Thoughts

Overall, I think this is probably the best value safety squat from a reputable major manufacturer that you can get today. The price alone would be typically worth the purchase in my opinion, but the fact it has some great quality of life, performance, and comfort features really just move this SSB to the front of the line in my book compared to other big name brands offerings.

Signoff and Q&A

So guys that’s it for this review of the Bells of Steel SS4 safety squat bar. As always, if you have any questions, please comment down below and I will be happy to answer or at least try. Thank you for tuning into The Jungle Gym Reviews, we will see you next time, take it easy, peace.

-Michael @TheJungleGymReviews