I haven’t been to the real-gym for about four months. I haven’t felt the drive or desire to really go. I’m still in decent looking shape, have gone from a 34 to a 32, and am only nine pounds heavier than my high school weight. To keep up some level of upper body strength I was doing fifty pushups a day, but I was getting bored. Enter the Creative Fitness door chin-up bar.
There are a few contraptions like it on the market, but basically it hangs on top of the door frame. The metal bits that anchor the bar to the door frame are well-padded to avoid marring your trim and paint. The Creative Fitness model comes with a straight bar for “wide” grip pull-ups and two handles for close-grip pull-ups. There are foam pieces at each end of the straight bar, further protecting the door from damage.
My biggest complaint about the system is that it’s not really “wide” enough to do a true wide-grip pull-up. I wish that the tubing curved around a little bit more so that it didn’t lie completely flush with the door frame, or perhaps utilized a second, longer bar for wide-grip work. The close-grip part is awesome, but like in most things I wish it was just a little bit wider.
Installation/construction was easy. The bar has all the necessary hardware and it took me probably five minutes to build the bar and hang it over my office door. I tried to put it over my bathroom door — I read online that a guy does five pull-ups every time he used the bathroom, and that seemed like a good idea — but the door was too narrow.
I made my first pull-up with trepidation, but told myself even if it did rip away from the wall I didn’t have far to fall. The wall creaked just a little, and the next thing I knew I had completed my fifth close-grip pull-up.
No wookies were harmed in the taking of this picture.
Well, maybe in this picture.
The Creative Fitness door frame chin-up bar was about $60 shipped. I think it’s an over-sized item so you get dinged on shipping. At any rate, I think it’s a good value, especially if you can train yourself to do it whenever you do something else. I really wish I could have mounted it over my bathroom door. For now, I just crank off two sets of pull-ups in between doing push-ups. It also comes in handy when I’m frustrated with work.
Creative Fitness door frame chin-up bar, I pull up:
Four out of five STFU mugs!
Do you have any idea what it looks like you are doing in those pictures!
The children!
I was thinking about grabbing something like this. I might buy a set of rings instead.
Have you thought about doing a variation of Handstand pushups?
http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFit_HSPUVariations.wmv
That’s awesome — I did some of those when I was training with Yoda (see the 21 percent entries if you haven’t already). The problem I would have doing them unattended is I would totally crash and fuck up my house. There isn’t a ton of free wall space like in a gym, and a mishap might push me right into my gaming console rack. ;)
Well in the video you see the lady doing some modified HSPUs with her feet on a sturdy object. That is how I do them since I cannot possibly do one full HSPU, let alone while balancing.
Handstand push-ups work the triceps and chest, with some core thrown in due to the torso balancing. Your chin-up bar is actually a good complementary workout, since it does biceps and lats/back.
Here’s what I’ve got in my house for pullups. Not nearly as fancy as yours, but it does the trick. (it’s a handicap bathroom bar from home depot)
http://www.jumpyfroggy.com/gallery2/d/10774-2/pullupbar_small.jpg
The specs say that the bar is for door frames up to 32″ wide. Does the 32″ include the molding?
My doorway is about 35 inches from the outside edge of the molding to the other outside edge of the molding. Is it too small for my doorway?
Thanks!