Guide to the Rogue Cerakote Colors Olympic Barbells

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Did you know that Rogue Olympic barbells are available with Cerakote – a thin-film ceramic coating that offers amazing durability, protection, and a choice of colors and patterns?

The Rogue Ohio Bar is available in a variety of cerakote finishes - shown here with red shaft and black sleeves.
The Rogue Ohio Bar is available in a variety of cerakote finishes – shown here with red shaft and black sleeves.

Cerakote is also popular in the gun industry – because of the range of custom colors that can be used, but also because of the amazing durability of this thin-film coating.

Here’s the barbells we are going to review in this article.

Rogue Ohio Bar (Cerakote) An awesome all around bar - the Rogue Ohio Bar is a 20kg bar with cost effective bushings - use it for Oly lifting or power lifts. Made in the USA
Rogue Operator Bar 3.0 (Cerakote) Styles inspired by the military that will fit in on the base including camouflage (Tek Grey Camo and Tiger Stripe), OD green, and Desert Tan.
Rogue Freedom Bar (Cerakote) It's a bar with the Red, White, and Blue right on the shaft. Do I need to explain further?
Rogue Matt Chan Bar (Cerakote) The bar custom designed by Matt Chan has cerakote - and his logo right on the shaft
Rogue Athlete Series Bars (Cerakote) Rogue has a number of bars in their Athlete series that have the logo and sayings of your favorite CrossFit games champions.
Rogue Ohio Deadlift Bar (Cerakote) The Ohio bar in a bar meant for deadlifting only - with a 27mm diameter it is easy to grip and has lots of whip.
Before you buy Need help understanding the lingo for Olympic barbells? Check out our barbell guide. Make sure you get the right barbell for the training you intend to do.

Why Cerakote for a barbell??

Cerakote has a number of advantages over traditional coatings. Cerakote is resistant to wear, abrasion, corrosion, and chemicals. It was originally developed in the 1980s for use on firearms – where a very thin coating is desirable due to the tight tolerance on the moving parts of a firearm. Here’s some more Cerakote facts:

  • Thin-film – How thin? Typically, just 0.001-inch thick. Perfectly fine for surfaces with knurling, which is obviously an important attribute for a barbell.
  • Adheres to a wide range of materials – steel, aluminum, stainless steel but also plastics or polymers, and wood.
  • Grip – Cerakote offers excellent grip – which is important in a barbell.
  • Cerakote is usually applied with a spray gun, and then oven cured.
  • Cerakote is significantly more resistant to corrosion than chrome or zinc – and only bested by very expensive stainless steel.
  • Available in a variety of colors

Cerakote Barbell Colors

What custom cerakote colors are available? Here they are as shown on a Rogue Ohio Bar – An excellent dual-purpose bar that has great whip for Oly lifting, but enough stiffness for serious powerlifting as well. This option shows a colored shaft, with black Cerakote sleeves.

Rogue Cerakote Olympic Barbell with Black Sleeves - color options Rogue Cerakote Olympic Barbell with Black Sleeves - color options

The second option is a colored shaft with hard chrome sleeves. Chrome has excellent durability to wear and abrasion, and the sleeves see a lot of wear and tear – as you can imagine.

Chrome sleeves will be more durable than Cerakote sleeves.

But, they don’t look as nice.

Rogue Olympic Barbell Cerakote with Chrome Sleeves Rogue Olympic Barbell Cerakote with Chrome Sleeves

Rogue Fitness occasionally adds new color options for the Cerakote barbells, so click through to the website to see the latest color options.

Also – they offer different color options on some of the bars. The Bella Bar, for example offers purple, which is not available on the Ohio bar. They also offer gloss clear Cerakote on the Bella Bar – for those that want the corrosion protection without a custom color.

Rogue Bella Bar with Purple Cerakote and Gloss Clear Cerakote

High Gloss Clear Cerakote is now offered on the Rogue Ohio Bar as well. The Ohio Bar is an awesome dual-purpose barbell – great for Oly lifting or power lifting. It’s the perfect 20 Kg CrossFit training bar.

Now available in High Gloss Clear Cerakote, the Rogue Ohio Bar is a 20KG multi-purpose barbell that features a 190,000 PSI tensile strength shaft, dual knurl marks, quality composite bushings, and a lifetime warranty against bending. Available with Chrome or black Cerakote sleeves.

Rogue Fitness Cerakote Quality

Rogue’s build quality is legendary.

Their barbells are hands down the best bang for the buck.

And the Cerakote bars are no exception. Ask around – check the reviews (or reddit).

The biggest reason to buy Rogue? Quality. And a company that stands behind their products.

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Special limited time color combinations

And on occasion, Rogue offers special, limited-quantity color combinations. Rogue offered a cool looking black on black with red bushings model of the Ohio and Bella bars. This was a MBF Exclusive for Rogue’s Matte Black Friday 2017 – their biggest sale of the year. Unfortunately, it’s no longer available.

Rogue Ohio bar with black on black cerakote, and red bushings - an MBF exclusive that is still available. Get them while they last.
Rogue Ohio bar with black on black cerakote, and red bushings – an MBF exclusive that you can now custom order via Zeus build-a-bar.

But what’s even better – you can now use Rogue’s ZEUS | Custom Build-a-Bar to make one just like it – or with a variety of other options such as custom colors, text, and even images!

What sort of barbell do you need? Rogue offers Cerakote on the following barbell models:

Which bar is right for you? It depends on the style of training you intend to do. Check out our guide to Rogue Olympic Barbells for an understanding of the key attributes of each type of bar.

Here’s the special Pink Edition for the Ohio Bar and Bella Bar, with proceeds from the sales being donated to the Stefanie Spielman Fund for Breast Cancer Research.

Rogue Ohio Bar Cerakote - Special Pink Edition - proceeds donate to cancer research fund - Rogue Pink Barbell for Women

Most of the bars also have Rogue branding in the center. To say it looks good is an understatement.

Rogue Cerakote Ohio Bar showing Rogue Branding

Once you’ve decided which barbell is the right choice for you, head on over to the Rogue Fitness site, and find out a bit more. A quality barbell is an investment – it will last for years and pay dividends in your training. But take a moment to make the right decisions.

We hope that we’ve helped in that process.

Rogue Operator Bar – Camouflage

Rogue Camoflage Patterns - Rogue Operator Bar with Cerakote And how’s this for cool? The Rogue Operator Bar 3.0 in two different camouflage patterns. Good whip, Olympic (20KG) bushing bar – and it looks great. Available in two custom patterns – Tek Grey Camo or Tiger Stripe Woodland Camo. Made in the USA.

Rogue Operator Bar in Camo

Rogue Cerakote Barbells – Athlete Series

Athlete Series Cerakote Bars - Froning Edition Ohio Bar

Rogue also has the Athlete Series – cerakote bars with custom logos and dedicated to CrossFit champions and Rogue athletes – such as Rich Froning, Mat Fraser, Katrin Davidsdottir, Tia-Clair Toomey, and more. These bars feature logos, flags, and phrases.

The newest bar in this series is dedicated to the world-class Strongman Hafþór Júlíus “Thor” Björnsson. This new THOR EDITION Ohio Power Bar is available in 20KG and 45LB versions, each with a Cerakote shaft. The bar features the Icelandic flag to the right of the center knurl and the nickname THOR in white to the left.

Inspired by Rogue Athlete and world-class Strongman Hafþór Júlíus "Thor" Björnsson, the exclusive THOR EDITION Ohio Power Bar is available here in 20KG and 45LB versions, each with a Cerakote shaft. The bar features the Icelandic flag to the right of the center knurl and the nickname THOR in white to the left.

Rogue Freedom Bar

The Freedom Bar is a new, special edition colorway of our Ohio Cerakote Bar, featuring a red, white and blue shaft finish in an exclusive stars-and-stripes American flag pattern.

Here’s another new item – that shows off the ability to put a beautiful pattern on any barbell – the Rogue Freedom Bar. It’s an Ohio Cerakote Bar – featuring a red, white and blue shaft finish in an exclusive stars-and-stripes American flag pattern.

And where is it made? Like all Rogue Ohio bars, in the USA, of course.

The 25mm Freedom Bar is a variation on our Cerakote Womens Bella Bar, and features a red, white and blue shaft finish in an exclusive stars-and-stripes American flag pattern. Fully machined and assembled in Columbus, OH, the Freedom Bar includes a 190,000 PSI tensile strength shaft, dual knurl marks, and black composite bushings

A Women’s Freedom Bar is now offered as well. Based on the Cerakote Women’s Bella Bar, it features a red, white and blue shaft finish in an exclusive stars-and-stripes American flag pattern.

The barbell diameter is 25mm – this smaller diameter is easier to grip securely for those with smaller hands. The Men’s Freedom Bar has a 28.5mm diameter, for comparison.

The women’s bar also weighs a bit less than a men’s Olympic barbell (15 kg/33 lbs vs 20kg/44 lbs)

Matt Chan Bar in Cerakote

The Cerakote version of the Matt Chan Bar takes the key elements from the original design and introduces an assortment of new features, including a new stainless steel shaft with a higher tensile strength of 200,000 PSI and an ultra-durable Cerakote color finish with photo-negative style Rogue and Chan logos directly on the shaft.

The Matt Chan Bar is now available in a Cerakote version as well.

What’s the Rogue Chan Bar? It’s a dual-use powerlifting and weightlifting bar made to the specifications of Matt Chan – legendary CrossFit athlete.

The original version has a tough black zinc finish, and looks really slick.

But the Cerakote version will resist corrosion better than zinc.

It’s also possible to do a bit more visually with the appeal of the bar – the Matt Chan logo and Rogue logos for example.

The Chan Bar has a center knurl – because that’s how Matt Chan wants it. It gives extra grip on your back for squats, or up front in the rack position. In the Chan Bar, the center knurl is not Cerakoted. That helps provide a natural bare steel feel to the knurl in that area. Won’t that open the door to corrosion? No – because the Matt Chan Bar’s shaft is made from stainless steel.

In Summary – Rogue Cerakote Olympic Barbells

To some, a barbell is a barbell. But for others, they want an option that not just works, but looks good doing it. And the Rogue Cerakote line of barbells bring that to the table.

You may want to review our guide to garage gym power racks, guide to ideal weightlifting barbells, or our guide to Olympic weight plates as well.

Why Rogue Fitness Products? We’re a Rogue Fitness affiliate – so if you order equipment after clicking the links in this article we receive monetary compensation. But that’s not why we recommend Rogue. It’s because their equipment is tough, durable, well-made, and made in America. Their equipment looks good, and works even better. Their innovative designs and diversity of options make your training better – allowing you to reach your personal goals faster. And that’s why we love them.

Photo & Image Credits

All Rogue Fitness product imagery is property of Rogue Fitness, and provided by Rogue Fitness.


Rogue Ohio Bar with Cerakote ceramic thin-film coating in blue