Best home pull up bar and how to mount

Best wall mounted pull up bar and how to install it


i hate to admit but the lifestyle of most of us when you sit all day at school or in college or you sit all day staring at a screen at work then you get back home where you sit or lay down again to stare at the screen again while playing games or watching movies or youtube videos and this lifestyle requires more physical activity especially if you start to get fat but even if you’re not getting fat your body is probably not fit enough anywhere with muscles all soft and wobbly if you want to get fit the usual place to go is a gym however personally i have a lot of problems with that unless you have your own private personal gym in another room in your house or maybe in your garage those places with public access no matter paid or some people have free gym access at work or at school or in college anyway my main concern with gyms is first of all time even if i go to my local gym a couple blocks away that still takes me about 20 minutes to stop doing what i have been doing shut everything down take my gym bag get dressed for the street arrive to the gym go inside changing my training gear and actually reach any machine in the gym itself all this takes me at least 20 minutes the same goes with the way back since you normally have to take a shower change to your everyday clothes and go back home this also takes at least 20 minutes sometimes more so i spend anything in between 40 minutes to 1 hour just to go to and back from the gym and that is not counting the workout itself normally i work out for about 40 minutes but this only works only if the gym is not crowded and i don’t have to wait for my turn to use the equipment so in the best possible scenario the trip to the gym and back takes more time than the workout itself i could spare all that if i had the equipment at home i could either save half of the time or spend more time working out and not reaching the gym the second problem i detest gyms is because they are dirty imagine all the customers sweating on all those benches and other equipment all the time throughout the year a good habit is to bring your own towel to the gym but that doesn’t mean that everyone does that and puts the towel on the benches when they use the equipment and you definitely may get some fungi if you use the kamino shower or even the locker room the situation with sweat and dirt kinda improved during the pandemic and after the pandemic since gyms are disinfected better now and most people use some kind of hand sanitizers and stuff like that but anyway they are still gross if we forget cardio for a second since this is mostly about jogging and you don’t necessarily need any fancy equipment for that and you can run around your neighborhood most days of the year even in winter even if there is snow on the ground there is a stark difference between strength training fitness and bodybuilding strength training and especially bodybuilding relies on many repetitions with smaller weights you have to keep the number of repetitions constant however to progress you need to increase the weight in little increments that’s why dumbbells and other weights are available in various sizes including very very light ones that allows easy incremental increases of your workout weights however if you don’t necessarily want to increase your muscle mass but still want to look and be a little bit fitter you don’t necessarily need free weights training you may use your own weight to train the most popular exercises are of course chin ups dips and so on the problem with that is that you cannot lower your own weight you can increase your weight by getting fatter or taking some weights with you for example a weighted belt but this is a long time away when you only start to train you only have your own weight and you cannot decrease it and that does not allow you to do as many repetitions as needed for bodybuilding however if you continue to train you will be able to do more and more repetitions because you are getting stronger and fitter to train with your own weight you don’t even need a gym by the way if we are talking chin ups some gyms have special machines that counter balance your own weight allowing you to do more repetitions until you are able to do them without the help of the machine however if you want to train with your own weight you don’t even need a gym membership there is a whole workout movement around that and basically you can find public free chin up bars and dip machines somewhere in your neighborhood but this still has the same problem of being gross imagine how many dirty hands from all of your neighbors touched those bars and the only salvation here is that they are usually open air that means ultraviolet from the sun kills at least some of the germs and water from the rain washes away at least some of the dirt but anyway those are mostly outside and that means that you are dependent on the weather and you probably won’t be able to work out when it rains when it snows or when it’s just too hot or too cold outside and also all the neighbors will be looking at you while you’re working out i personally have been wanting a chin up bar for a long time i had one when i was a kid and that was fantastic and now when i am a grown up man i have some back problems not too serious but still i find it very beneficial even just to hang on the chin up bar for a couple minutes that kinda extrudes my spine relaxes the muscles and i feel much better and almost rejuvenated after even just hanging from a chin up bar without doing anything so i finally found a nice spot for my own personal private china bar just outside my house and started to shop around for a china bar to think about that getting a china bar should be no-brainer and very fast purchase since what could be simpler than a metal tube with wall attachments it turned out that is far from being simple there are a lot of details you have to pay attention to not to be disappointed with your purchase first of all you have to find a suitable wall or ceiling to mount the bar your best bet is red brick walls or concrete walls anything else like wooden walls foam concrete bricks and drywalls will not work you need a solid concrete or brick wall to fit the chin up bar securely i’m also against those bars that attach to a wooden frame of your door since i don’t think they are secure enough if you don’t have a suitable wall to mount your chin up bar maybe you should consider a freestanding one which stands on its own legs another problem is those chin up bars readily available online seem to be constructed by people who have very little understanding of metal engineering especially how levers work however the biggest load you are supposed to have on a chin up bar is around 100 kilos and most of them if mounted properly will bear that load no problem however some of them to make the package smaller and to save on packaging materials and shipping make the bar itself a two-piece item one part sticks into another and then they are secured by one or two bolts and nuts i really dislike this idea and this construction is definitely prone to being bent even by smaller loads like if you weigh around 60 or 80 kilos this most definitely will bend another problem with dimensions is that most of those bars seem not to be designed for grown up men many of them have front facing handles and the distance between those two handles is around 45 centimeters which is too narrow for a grown-up man of normal height and normal shoulders the distance between those bars should be at least 10 centimeters more around 55 centimeters but my biggest issue is the distance from the wall most sellers don’t even provide the measurement between the wall and the bar in the item description however they do provide the overall measurement and the front facing handles are usually around 50 to 60 centimeters from the wall which is not enough that means that the bar itself is around 35 40 or at max 45 centimeters from the wall and that is very uncomfortable and very dangerous because if you do your pull ups facing the wall and there is only 40 centimeters gap you will be scratching the wall with your knees all the time if you do it backwards with your back facing the wall you most likely will be hitting the wall with the back of your head when you go up and that is very dangerous another dangerous thing is many of those bars are also suitable for punch bags elastic straps and other kinds of attachments and they have a non-detachable hook or hole in the center of the bar which you may and will hit with your temple face and other parts of your body while you exercise and this may cause serious trauma and injury so after several days of browsing chin up bars online i finally settled with this one from k-sport k-sport seems to be a company from poland but they ship their products all over europe anyway this particular model seems to be wide enough sturdy enough and most importantly it’s well removed from the wall since the distance from the wall to the tip of the front handles is around 70 centimeters meaning that the bar itself is around 60 centimeters which is the maximum i could find by browsing online it seemed to be a little bit pricey compared to the competition on amazon it was cheaper on ebay however when i went to the website directly i discovered a sale going on and this particular bar was very reasonably priced especially taking free shipping into consideration and i found even a better option from the same brand similar dimensions but it has two more additional horizontal mounting bars and for some reason it was even cheaper so i purchased that and it was delivered in a couple of days so here’s the box since the bar itself is not cut in two it’s quite long well packaged however some part of the bar was sticking out of the box but it wasn’t damaged or something so that’s okay so inside the package there’s the bar and the supports rubberized handles a couple of k-sport branding stickers i’m glad they’re separate and not already glued to the product since i’m not going to use those there is a separate hook for punch bag i’m also glad it is not attached since i’m not going to use it anyway if it was screwed on from the factory it would most definitely have damaged the paint job in the middle of the bar some plastic caps and covers and also bolts and nuts that’s it there is no wrenches there is no drill bits and you will need a couple wrenches and a suitable drill and drill bit for your walls the supplied bolts are 12 millimeters with 13 millimeter tops so you will need two 13 millimeter wrenches you may use normal wrenches you may use expandable wrenches you may use ratchets and you may use power tools to mount this i will be just using a couple of wrenches which i have left over from ikea furniture as for the anchors they are plastic nylon anchors most of the competition come bundled with the metal anchors and actually i like those more however those metal anchors only anchor at one point that is usually very deep in the hole nylon anchors hold across the entire hole so in this regard they are kind of better anyway if you have the opportunity to drill through the wall i strongly recommend getting those long threaded rods and using that to mount this thing through the wall and putting some washers and nuts on the back side of the wall this will be the most secure way to mount this thing in my case i don’t have the opportunity to do this i’m not going to replace the supplied nylon anchors with some metal ones i’m just going to use what is provided even though i have a very nice set of drill bits of course there is no 12 millimeter mansory drill in the package so i had to go to the hardware store to purchase that since i will be mounting to a red brick wall i don’t really need like an sds plus harmer tool a normal power drill with hammer functionality will work just fine so the absolute minimum of tools you have to get to mount this thing is a power drill with a hammer mode a 12 millimeter concrete drill and two 13 millimeter wrenches this is the minimum however i strongly advise to use at least eye protection and also ear protection and most probably nose protection since we have to drill quite a lot of holes and there will be a lot of brick dust everywhere if you cannot get your hands on a specialized industrial type vacuum cleaner which you can use to collect the dust while you drill so it won’t be everywhere to collect this dust you may use a simple plastic bag attached to the wall with adhesive tape you will also need something to mark the hose like a simple pencil a knife a hammer or a mallet some old nail or screw so you can punch the hose a little bit before using the drill you may need some light lubricant wd-40 will do just fine the instruction also says you need some metal file since you might have to file down some imperfections in this particular case there was only one it was a small metal slab protruding on one of the handles and that would most definitely damage the rubber handle so i had to file that down and probably you need some kind of a stool to stand on while you mount that i recommend mounting this around 10 centimeters higher than the highest you can reach with your hand stretched up and also the instruction suggests you need two people to mount this a second person would probably be useful but i managed to mount this on my own just fine also you may need a bubble level i didn’t have one with me however i had my smartphone with me and it has at least two apps that could easily replace a bubble level also don’t obsess too much with it being perfectly level it’s nice if it is but if you’re off one two degrees that doesn’t really jeopardize anything before proceeding to mount it i checked the product it seems to be okay the paint job is also nice there are some small imperfections on the paint job however since i’m going to mount that outside and most of those indoor bars can be mounted outside it will inevitably get rust however it will take years if not decades before the rust will become an issue as construction goes the horizontal bars are not welded together they are just inserted and secured by the same bolts you use it to secure to the wall also the rectangular tubes are not seamless they have seams inside and i would suggest that you put those to the back of the wall and since this is a brick wall it will constantly need on the paint of the back of those bars and the paint will be scratched and start to peel off from the back quite soon so don’t be too obsessed with the paint job so to start mounting i first figured out where the bar should be it is very easy to do on a brick wall because you can just count the bricks to mark the first hole i bolted the red bar to one of the grey mounds the reason i had to do that is because i’m mounting this in an inward corner so there is an obstacle to the left of the bar so i had to make sure there is enough clearance between the left wall and the bar itself if you don’t have obstacles to the left or to the right you may just take one of the posts to mark the hose without the red bar itself the instruction says you have to drill in 80 millimeters that’s about the twisted part of the drill bit i got but anyway i measured the required depth and marked that on the drill with a piece of tape you may also use those measurement rods that many drills have on their handles when marking the holes i tried to make sure that the holes on the posts go somewhere in the middle of the bricks and not into the seams so after marking the first hole with a pencil i gave it a punch with a nail attached my plastic bag to collect the dust and started drilling in most cases you have to drill straight but if the drill bit dances and you get the hole at an angle that’s not necessarily a bad thing that might be a good thing since it makes it difficult for the nylon anchor and the bolt to come out when they are completely screwed in after drilling the hole i removed as much dust from inside as i could and drove in the first nylon plug with my hand however the plugs have those outer rings that prevent them from being flush with the wall so i decided to remove the plug cut those rings off and then reinsert the plug you may want to use a mallet to lightly drive the plug into the wall so now bolt the left post to the wall using the supplied bolt tighten it almost completely so the post won’t rotate on its own but still not completely tight so you can align that now comes the trickiest part we have to mark the first hole for the second post in this case the right one take the right post insert the bar into it secure it with a bolt and nut insert it to the left post that we have just mounted make sure the bar is level using the bubble level or your phone app and then use your pencil to mark the right lowest hole then remove everything from the wall including the post that we have already mounted if everything seems level drill the hole remove as much debris from insides of the hole as you can and insert the nylon plug you may need to use the mallet now take the left and the right posts the bar and the horizontal mounts secure the bar to both posts insert the horizontal mounts bring the entire contraption to the wall and tighten the bolts to both holes that we have just drilled check that everything is level again then mark the upper holes unscrew everything again drill those upper holes insert the plugs bring back the entire thing and screw all four bolts now we have to mark and drill the holes on the upper horizontal mount and here comes one of the flaws for these product mounting options even though i’m using quite a standard brick wall that means the brick are standard and the seams between them are also standard however if you make sure that the left and right vertical holes are somewhere in the middle of a brick there is no way you can make the upper horizontal holes to be in the brick they will be in the seam this is just how the dimensions of this thing work anyway mark the remaining holes remove everything from the wall for the last time drill the remaining holes insert the plugs bring back the chin up bar and start to screw in the bolts since we are using nylon plugs make sure they are not going out of the wall when you are trying to screw them in that happens quite often especially in brick work since bricks are kind of brittle and sometimes do not provide enough grip if that happens you may want to clean the plug wrap it around in a couple layers of electrical tape and then drive them back in you may also want to consider replacing nylon plugs with metal anchors after everything is tightened up we still have to mine the aesthetics there are some plastic caps for the side of the tubes you may just put them in but i advise to use some minor glue just to make sure they don’t fall off also the plastic is very soft and is very easily scratched and as i had to use a mallet to drive those plugs fully in and even though i put a piece of wood between the cap and the mallet it still has some minor scratches from hammering it in we also need to put on the handles make sure there are no sharp edges on the metal ends of the pipe if there are file them down the rubber handles are a tight fit and you may have trouble putting them on you may use a little bit of lubricant inside to help you but if you struggle to put them on completely place something soft like a piece of cardboard on a hard surface like concrete slabs in this case put on the rubber handle place it on the cardboard and use your body weight to drive it down and one more thing obviously nothing of this is custom-made this is your standard off-the-shelf metal tubes that are cut bent and welded together to form a particular shape that’s why the inner diameter of the grey mountain post does not exactly match the outer diameter of the red bars there is a gap between them and despite being secured by a boat there is still a little bit of wiggle which causes that unpleasant metal clanking sound when you use the bar to counter that take electrical tape and give the parts of the red bar that go inside the gray tube a couple wraps on the two sides of the mounting hole the number of wraps required depends on the thickness of your particular electrical tape however make sure the red bar freely slides inside the mounting gray tubes the electrical tape is narrow so it won’t be seen from outside however that will form a caution and prevent one tube from touching the other tube after all the rubber sleeves are on you can finally put the bar back on and tighten it up actually this is the only time you really need two wrenches to tighten this up you will hold the bolt with one wrench and screw the nut with the other one so basically we’re done the only thing left in the package is the hook i will not be mounting that the stickers i will not be attaching those and plastic covers for the bolts and nuts these are quite easy to put on but may be a little trickier to put off so don’t put them on yet use the chin up bar for at least a week or maybe 2 weeks after 2 weeks of daily use take the wrench and try to tighten all the bolts after 2 weeks and making sure everything is secure you can put on the decorative caps to protect the bolts so i’ve been using this product at least once a day sometimes more for about a month and can share some feedback first of all this is a nicely done sturdy and easy to use pull-up bar and i really enjoy using it there are some minor flaws that could be easily addressed by the manufacturer the first one even though the rubber sleeves provide a nice grip they are still very hard on your skin and you really may want to use exercise gloves to avoid blisters on the insides of your palms second even though this construction is sturdy enough there still is a little bit of wiggle when you push it left and right this is caused by two things even though it has two horizontal bars they are not actually attached together and they are held together by the same screws and second the vertical holes are in line all the wiggling could be avoided if one of the screws was a little bit to the left and the other screw was a little bit to the right i’m also not entirely happy with the provided screws and nylon plugs but these could be easily replaced at your local hardware store and the last thing to mention is the lower bar since i mounted this outside and it has happily survived a couple of rain downfalls no problem but still the lower bar is basically a bottle there are gaps between the left and right posts and the lower bar so water can potentially get inside but it has no way to get out again this could be easily amended by drilling a drainage hole in the lower part of the bar i may as well do this myself however i would prefer if that was done at the factory and then painted and also there is a minor thing but still it could be easily avoided there is a little issue with those decorative caps for the bolts they are all the same and actually they are not deep enough to cover the protruding parts of the bolts that secure the red bar to the grey posts that could be easily avoided if the included boats were half a centimeter shorter of course i can either cut them or replace them myself but still if you are looking for a chin up bar and waist mounted i can also offer some advice first of all make sure the bar is wide enough to be comfortable to use for your shoulders and also the clearance between the bar and the wall is at least 60 centimeters so you won’t be constantly hitting the wall with your legs or your head if several people of different height are going to use the bar the bar should be 10 centimeters higher than the highest of the users can reach with their hand stretched upwards all the rest will either have to jump to the bar or use some kind of crate or box or stool to reach it as for mounting you really need a sturdy wall concrete or brick if your concrete or brick wall has thick plaster or maybe some dry ball attached to it or any other kind of siding you may want to cut out the siding of the plaster or the drywall and mount the bar directly to the wall or you may use a wide wooden plank between the bar and the drywall to distribute the load better so the bar won’t crack your drywall as for mounting options if it’s possible i really really recommend using threaded rods to mount right through the wall and securing the rods on the opposite side of the wall with large washers and a self-locking nut or a couple knots if you cannot do that i really recommend using metal anchors and not nylon plugs and there also is a new kid in town which is called a chemical plug that is basically some epoxy resins that you put into the wall screw in your bolt and waits a couple hours for the resins to settle i’ve heard some very good feedback about those but haven’t used them personally in general i am very happy that i now have my own personal chin up bar which i can use anytime i want at any time of day or night since unlike free weights or weight lifting machines chin up bars are silent there is no noise except your own panting and groaning i can already feel that parts of my arms my shoulders and my chest are getting stronger even though i still cannot do many repetitions but the number of repetitions i can do is slowly growing i also like that this bar has three sets of handles so you can grab it in different ways and in different spots and that gives you some variety in exercises so you can stress your muscles in different ways that’s very important since human bodies tend to adapt to the same exercise quite quickly and your progress stalls that’s called a plateau and i definitely have less back pain from just hanging from the chin up bar for a couple minutes each day i’m also planning to get a deep station so i can do dips and also abs and since i don’t like those removable ones that are on some kind of hooks i like those that are permanently attached to the wall and i won’t attach that directly beneath the chin up bar i have worries that the deep station that is not removable will interfere with me getting on the chin up bar but anyway in the future i’m going to get a deep station and find a place to mount it