The Specialty Bar With Fully Rotating Handles: Kensui Fitness Okinawa Omni Barbell Review

This is a specialty bar with 360 degree rotating handles the Kensui fitness Okinawa Omni barbell It's one of their handful of affordable specialty bars And this one simply has two handles that rotate anywhere 360 degrees in a circle in order to give you the best comfort and grip preference for that specific movement Whether it's curls pressing or rowing you can change the angles at any time to accommodate your body your biomechanics And of course add a lot of variety and versatility to your home gym. So let's check it out Hey guys, this is Michael with the jungle gym reviews today reviewing the Kensui fitness Okinawa Omni barbell It's a very simple barbell in theory But it has a lot of options for you to add different styles to your training So I'm gonna talk about some of the reasons I was interested in it as well as some of the other potential options If this bar doesn't seem to be the right one for you before I get into the video If you could quickly hit that subscribe button below if you haven't already It's going to continue to help us grow the channel and make sure you get notified We post our weekly review videos throughout the rest of 2025 and if you're interested in purchasing this after the review Please check out that affiliate link in the description below So a little bit about Kensui fitness for those of you who don't know Kensui has their entry into the game as a more Import brand but they have a lot of unique offerings things like loadable dumbbell handles plate loaded weight vests I've owned actually their swissies handles which simply Mount to any bar Neutral version of the swissies as well, which is just a straight handle Make your existing barbell make your existing pull-up bar have a different angle But they sell variety of things while being extremely practical for home gyms and not breaking the bank Now that i've seen this barbell recently i've had this on my mind simply because it has these 360 degree rotating handles I'm going to assume it's some sort of bearings, but they do not lock meaning that at any point in the movement Depending on how you want to move your hands And depending on how the weight is getting distributed between the bar and you and space and gravity and all those fun things The handles do and are intended to move Specifically to give you a little more flexibility with your joints and how you want to handle the bar doing certain movements To me, this is both a pro and a con. I like it for being able to do things like curls Changing how you grip.

I like this more neutral grip at the bottom of a curl and at the top With my palms facing back towards me to get that peak bicep contraction It does also make it harder to be a little more repeatable from rep to rep Because of the little resistance from the bearings my hands might not end up in the exact same place Each time you do this one hand might turn or tilt slightly slower than the others But for the most part, it works pretty well. All movements I have to decrease the weight I use by about 30%. So overall, it makes the movements harder, which can be good if your goal is strictly to make things harder and more difficult and or work on some of your stabilization core or whatever other type of muscle groups are involved. However, I would say if your goal is strictly hypertrophy, repeating the same movement patterns over and over in a consistent way, I don't think a bar like this is for you because the handles do not lock.

It's simply just more for variety and stability. A couple of the few big specs about this bar for those who are interested. Clearly here it is rackable. One of my racks here, which is a 42 inch Titan Fitness Titan series, and it has about two and a half, three inches on either side with room to spare.

This will work fine on all racks. And the overall length is about 71 inches, and it weighs the same as a traditional barbell at 45 pounds. The loadable sleeve length clearly is a little bit shorter than a traditional Olympic bar, although it does have Olympic sleeves.

It is nine and a quarter inches. It does have bronze bushings so that it can rotate just like a traditional barbell, which is nice. The reason again for the shorter sleeves is because you're not doing things like squatting and deadlifting with this, very likely not going to overload this bar. Handles itself, as I mentioned, are 28 millimeters, which is the exact same as the shaft here.

I would say the handle knurling is definitely mild with some very mild volcano style knurling. There is one set width. I think this width I like for maybe two exercises, which is bench pressing and overhead shoulder, like standing military pressing. But besides that, things like barbell curls, it's a little too wide. Things like bent over rows. Again, I prefer a little narrower or things like upright rows. Even you'll see I literally just forego the handles completely and simply just grab the not moving center of the bar because that's exactly where I want my hands to be. This is probably one of the things I don't like about this bar. If you're doing a movement where that width is not ideal for you, or depending on the width of you, your body, your frame, or your just preference, this is probably going to be a little bit too much.

If you put your hands in the center, it's about 24 to five inches spread apart. Now some of the suggestions I would like to see in a bar like this is one of two things. One, potentially the handles themselves being lockable, whether it's with a little pin, very similar to the bulletproof VTS 360 bearing handles that are available for pre-sale currently, which I actually should have a review of those in the VTS coming later this year, but basically very same or similar concept as this and then has a little pop pin and it will lock it into place at certain angle increments, which would be nice because then maybe you could dial this in every 15 degrees or so. So the ability to make it lockable and rotatable, I think would add a more functionality to this bar. Now that probably also comes at a cost increase and this bar is kind of pricey as is. Right now the price is $299, which is definitely not a cheap bar. It's not the most pretty looking bar. It's not the most elegant looking bar. The knurling's not super great, but $300 is still quite a bit when spending on a bar, especially when I don't think it adds a ton of functionality that you really need.

Overall, I don't think $300 is worth it for a bar like this, especially when there are other similar options or maybe better options that are coming soon. The one that comes to mind is the Cub Complete Upper Body Bar. I believe it's called by resistance in motion and I'm sorry if I didn't get the acronyms exactly right. It's basically a modular and customizable barbell with a similar concept in that it has rotating handles, but also has these bands so that you can adjust or make your hands turn or fight against a certain type of banded motion while doing the movements. In addition to that, you can actually build that bar to be rackable like this. You can have the handles closer together, farther apart, and so you have a little more customization and options with that bar versus something like this. Last I checked, the price on that starts somewhere in the mid-400s and gets all the way up to $600 if you want a rackable version like this.

So that's kind of hard pill to swallow. I think it could be good, but without having used it or trying it, I can't really say that I would recommend that over this. The other bar that I've seen recently that I've not yet for sale is actually by Weighted Out. You might have heard that brand before, not in the context of bars, but with their thin weight plates.

Now I saw a bar exactly like this or similar to this prototyped on their Instagram page. So imagine this bar, but rather than circles here, it would be an oval and so that the handle could actually slide left to right within there on each side, about a six inch range. I would prefer something like that because at least then you can change the grip in and out in addition to rotating because I think this is only half of the puzzle. I would recommend this more if the handles could move in and out because then I could get the grip at least fixed to what I would like. As it stands today, I really like this only for one or two movements again. And for one or two movements, I can probably do dumbbells or bands or cable machine.

So for $300, it's probably going to be a pass from me. So guys, that's it for this video on the Kensui Fitness Okinawa Omni Barbell. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them down below.

I'll be happy to answer or at least try. Thanks for tuning in to the Jungle Dream Reviews. We'll see you next time. Take it easy. Peace.