I’m not near any gyms and have plenty of space, so I strongly prefer the safety profile of barbell + squat rack. If something goes wrong and I lose control of the weight, it’s good to know that there’s no way for it to hit me. And part of progressing is sometimes trying a weight that you’re only 80% or 90% sure you can actually lift successfully—I’d much rather the failure mode be clank “whoops!” than however many pounds of iron to the face.
I also find that it’s easier to track whether I’m using good form with a barbell vs dumbbells. The cues to moving a bar correctly are to keep it level and trace the correct path in a plane with it (usually straight up and down), whereas the cues to moving dumbbells correctly are… something about simultaneously tracking the position and orientation of two separate objects in 3-space? Definitely more complicated to keep track of all the moving parts when there are twice as many.
Barbells are also a compromise between fixed and adjustable dumbbells. You’ll probably want different weights for different exercises, and the exact weight you want for each will slowly increase over time. With a barbell, you modify the two ends to change the weight, and you can get plates as small as a few ounces if you need to increase the weight super slowly. With dumbbells, either you use fixed increments and have to store a lot of pairs, or you use adjustable ones and have to modify twice as many ends for each weight change.
If your access to equipment, space, and trainers is different from mine, though, your conclusions about the best options for training will likely be different as well.
I’m not near any gyms and have plenty of space, so I strongly prefer the safety profile of barbell + squat rack. If something goes wrong and I lose control of the weight, it’s good to know that there’s no way for it to hit me. And part of progressing is sometimes trying a weight that you’re only 80% or 90% sure you can actually lift successfully—I’d much rather the failure mode be clank “whoops!” than however many pounds of iron to the face.
I also find that it’s easier to track whether I’m using good form with a barbell vs dumbbells. The cues to moving a bar correctly are to keep it level and trace the correct path in a plane with it (usually straight up and down), whereas the cues to moving dumbbells correctly are… something about simultaneously tracking the position and orientation of two separate objects in 3-space? Definitely more complicated to keep track of all the moving parts when there are twice as many.
Barbells are also a compromise between fixed and adjustable dumbbells. You’ll probably want different weights for different exercises, and the exact weight you want for each will slowly increase over time. With a barbell, you modify the two ends to change the weight, and you can get plates as small as a few ounces if you need to increase the weight super slowly. With dumbbells, either you use fixed increments and have to store a lot of pairs, or you use adjustable ones and have to modify twice as many ends for each weight change.
If your access to equipment, space, and trainers is different from mine, though, your conclusions about the best options for training will likely be different as well.