AFFORDABLE GYMNASTICS TRAINING BAR FOR KIDS
My daughter continues to take gymnastics classes. She’s not at the competitive level so her practices are not as frequent. When it gets closer to her meets, she wants to practice more at home in order to strengthen her body or perfect her routine. We try to provide her the environment and tools to practice at home, without breaking the bank and taking up a lot of space. We have been using a mattress for occasional tumbling but we purchased this inexpensive and good quality gymnastics mat. Then we built this DIY gymnastics balance beam. When she needed to work on her upper body and pullovers I looked at different gymnastics bar options but our ceilings are so low that we could never have a regular gymnastics training bar. So we hacked two different types of doorway pull-up bars to help her practice her bar routine.
GYMNASTICS TRAINING BAR OPTION #1
The first bar we used is Perfect Basic Pull-up Bar. We used the largest doorway which was 36″. We measured where we would install the pivots based on my daughter’s height so that when she did the pullover, she wouldn’t hit her head on the floor. Then, we installed the side pivots and J-brackets upside down so that she can do her pullovers.
Installation was very easy. However, the pull-up bar didn’t turn out as portable as I had initially thought. When you slide the side pivot into the hole in one of the arms, you couldn’t get the other pivot in without tilting the other side, which was impossible. Since the pull-up bar was in the middle of the doorway, we had to figure out how to make it portable. The trick was to disassemble and assemble one of the arms of the pull-up bar after putting the pivots through the holes in the arms.
Perfect Basic Pull-up Bar is very sturdy. Once the arms slide into J-brackets it doesn’t move or swing. But you can also take it out of the j-brackets and use as a swing bar.
She practices her pullovers on this bar.
GYMNASTICS TRAINING BAR OPTION #2
The second bar is Portable pull-up bar which I use for my upper body workout as well. This pull-up bar is completely portable and has no part that has to be screwed on the doorway like the one above. However, when you hang up this pull-up bar, you can’t close the door. You have to take it down and put it away.
She practices pull ups, chin ups and leg lifts on this bar. We also use pull-up assist band to help with pull up and chin ups.
Obviously, you can’t practice full bar routines with this hack. Still, it helps to practice parts of it and work out to strengthen the core and upper body with a little investment and not a lot of space. This pull-up bar hack for pullovers is suitable for younger and shorter kids. Weight-wise both bars carry weights up to 220lbs. However, as they grow taller it would be dangerous for them to spin around the bar and hit their head. Make sure you have a mat or padding underneath the bar when they practice pullovers.
Disclaimer: Please pay close attention to installation instructions and safety guidelines provided in the manual or the booklet of the products.
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This was a very helpful review/hack! I wanted to clarify something you mentioned in your post however – you mentioned that in the bar was not as portable as you had originally thought, and mentioned disassembling one of the arms. Is that time-consuming to take down and put back up? And did you need to un/screw in order to move it? I’m working with a 4-5 year old where ease of installation is a priority for us. Thank you!
Scott,
Thank you for your comment. The disassembly and reassembly don’t take that long but it’s not as quick as slide up / slide down. I slightly unscrew one of the arms of the bad, place the pivots through the holes in the arms and screw it tight. I just timed myself. It’s 1,5 minutes (unscrew / screw one arm) vs 10 seconds (slide up / slide down w/o playing with the arm) . I hope this helps.