Question for anyone who does olympic lifts

[Sum Dum Gai]

Will doing things like power cleans with a cheap barbell screw up your wrists?

I got my barbell and iron plates from a dude on craigslist. They'd been sitting in his yard unused for months. All rusted up and crappy looking of course. I only paid $50 for the bar and 300 lbs of weight though. I cleaned them up with a wire brush, and spray painted the plates with rustoleum. The bar is a cheap CAP bar, with no bearings or anything. The sleeve on one side was completely rusted stuck when I got it. A big allen wrench and some elbow grease got it turning... mostly. Neither sleeve spins very well though.

I don't think it's a problem for most of my lifts, but my right wrist has been kind of jacked up for a few weeks, and I'm starting to think it's the power cleans that are doing it. I do them once or twice a week, alternating. I don't get sharp pain or anything while doing them. My wrist has just been sore, and it pops constantly, which is new. I started suspecting the barbell, because I realized that the sleeve that turns worse was usually on my right side.

[pig]

I don't olympic lift but even doing normal weighlifting with a bar in which the ends do not rotate (olympic bars) can cause injury.

[tractor]

I don't do cleans myself, but I can attest to having a bum wrist. It might just be the additional stress on the joints that is causing the pain and you might just have to rest it for a while. I used to have the same problem when I benched, but after taking it easy for awhile, my wrist now feels fine, even with heavier weight. I never thought about the ends of the bar rotating, but I guess most of them do. You should be able to have a loose enough grip the the bar can turn in your hand to avoid some of the wrist torque. Decent bars seem to be floating around out there, so keep your eyes open and you might get one cheap. I got one from a guy at work, not I just need some weights to use with it. I'd like to set up a dead-lifting platform at home so I can do that whenever I feel like it instead of taking up my normal workout time in the gym.

[Sum Dum Gai]

I've been trying to take it easy as much as I can without skipping workouts, and really focusing on my form. The pain was a lot worse the first week and has pretty much subsided now, but the popping is still there. I'm not sure if it's my cheap bar, less than perfect form, or just stretching due to wrist inflexibility. I was just wondering if anyone has had something similar happen.

Either way I should probably add a decent bar to my home gym wish list. It's going after the bumper plates though.

[pig]

Dark, I saw your deadlifting picture. You have and olympic bar. At each end there should be about a one inch sleeve cap which, if it's not too rusted, will comes off with an allen wrench. If you could get that off you could clean and repack it and it should be good as new.

[Sum Dum Gai]

I tried that, but I could only get one side off. The side I couldn't get off started out rusted completely stuck. I got it turning with the allen wrench, but I couldn't the screw to break so I could get the sleeve off and clean it. The side I cleaned still doesn't turn that well. It's metal on metal inside the sleave and it's pitted up a bit from use and rust. I've been keeping an eye on craigslist in case a better bar comes up, but if not I'll be buying one retail in a few months.