Strength Shop’s heavy duty dumbbell handle lives up to its name – but does it justify its 50-quid-plus price tag?
Dumbbell rows are by far and away my favourite back exercise. But if you stranded me on a desert island with my choice of just one piece of equipment, I’d be tempted to pick a heavy dumbbell.
The back is also my favourite body part to train. In fact, back exercises were pretty much my introduction to weight training. I’d been suffering from what I thought were back issues for some time, and – very long story very short – weighted back training was what helped me solve them.
During your novice days, you can do almost everything you need to do for the back with just your bodyweight and a pullup bar (and maybe a resistance band, if you can’t quite do an unassisted pullup yet).
The next stage up from that is barbell rows, which are a great exercise. But I find they involve too many leg muscles and too much lower back (in the form of isometrics).
And that’s where the dumbbell row comes in.
The problem with using dumbbells to row – particularly in commercial gyms, but also in many home gyms – is that you can quite quickly max out.
Even the more serious commercial gyms I’ve been to in the UK have dumbbells up to 50kg (110lb), and nothing after that.
More commonly, they cap out at 30kg (66lb). And if you’re as committed to dumbbell rows as I am, that just ain’t enough.
I’ve tried scores of different solutions for heavy dumbbell rows, from extra-long standard spinlock handles to Kensui Fitness’ adjustable handles, which are compatible with both standard and Olympic plates.
But – for reasons I may explain in other videos or articles – none of these worked for me. So I decided to buy Strength Shop’s Riot Heavy Duty Olympic Loadable Dumbbell Handle, which appears to have been designed especially with heavy dumbbell rows in mind.
First Impressions
This thing retails at £54.99 at the time of writing, which really isn’t cheap for a single dumbbell handle. No clips are provided.
Bear in mind that a regular pair of no-name, no-frills Olympic dumbbell handles costs well under £40 new on Amazon.
However, Strength Shop is keen to point out that this bar “has rotating 50mm sleeves and the sleeves have a end cap, just like a full size barbell” (somebody find Strength Shop a copy editor!).
They say it’s rated to 200kg (441lb). And if you see this thing, you will certainly believe that. It is big, chunky, sturdy and weighs in at 7.5kg (16.5lb). If nothing else, it’s not going to get blown out of your garage if a gust of wind comes through.
But would I recommend it? Well, it’s complicated…
What I Like About It
I’m not sure if this is just me, but I find this handle a lot easier than a spinlock alternative. The weight plates just seem to slide on, just like a barbell.
The fact that this handle’s sleeves rotate with bushings is nice, although for rows, I really don’t see any benefit of that function.
And, like so many Strength Shop items. it almost feels like this piece of equipment was built in the Soviet Union, it’s so heavy, sturdy and…er…metal. It’d almost certainly survive a nuclear war. And if you felt like handing it down to your grandkids, that’d certainly be an option.
The knurling is nice, not too aggressive, but not totally passive either. The plating is black oxide, which looks good if like me you have a gym full of other tons of black iron things, black floor mats and the like.
And that plating is fairly resilient. I’ve been using this quite intensively for a few months and it still looks relatively new.
The biggest draw of course is the fact that you can get a LOT of weight onto this handle. As long as your plates have 2” holes, you can load them on here. And unless you are some sort of lifting monster, you are probably never going to max this thing out.
For me, that was the main point in buying this thing.
What I Don’t Like About It
Unfortunately, for me, this handle is a long way from being perfect. Firstly, its handle thickness is advertised as being 33mm, which “makes it a comfortable dumbbell to press.”
I’m not sure how or why you’d press with this thing. Getting into a pressing position with two of these things would be a major headache, and it’d be seriously unwieldy considering the length.
But for my hands at least (and I think I have relatively average-sized hands), this thing feels too narrow for the row. I wish the shaft were just a little thicker.
I also don’t really like the coating. I’d prefer a chrome finish, because after a while, the metal-on metal contact of sliding plates on and off this thing is going to erode the oxide and make the handle look quite worn.
It is also a weird weight: 7.5kg. Maybe I just suck at maths (I do suck at maths), but I find that a very awkward starting weight. You can fix this easily by always adding 1.25kg weights on each side before adding heavier plates.
But I still kinda wish it were just 5kg or 10kg so I didn’t have to use this weird workaround.
However, my main beef with this handle is the length of the grip. Maybe my hands aren’t average after all, because I can literally fit both of my hands onto this handle at once. If you have massive hands, you might appreciate this kind of length. But for me, that length is a major bugbear.
For rows, I am constantly struggling to find this thing’s sweet spot, the point where it doesn’t tip forward or backward when I lift it off the ground. I don’t want to be dealing with that hassle during a heavy row. And I feel like I’d be giving this thing a way higher score if the grip section was just a few centimetres shorter.
By contrast, a cheap and cheerful spinlock doesn’t tip at all, even the extra-long version.
So – Should You Buy the Strength Shop Heavy Duty Dumbbell Handle?
The long and the short of it is that yes, I would still recommend this handle if you are like me, a dumbbell row fiend who has tried everything else.
I’d go for it. Because there really aren’t many good alternatives, this thing can take really heavy weight, and it is really as sturdy a dumbbell handle as you’re ever likely to find.
But if your hands are anything like mine, you might experience the same frustration with the grip length, which I think is such an annoyance.
If you can find a way to overcome all that, this is a great handle, and I’ve not seen anything like it on the UK home gym market.
