Rented one bedroom flat, concrete ceiling I can't drill, no garden, no beams. Budget about £70. I can train outside at a park with bars but realistically only twice a week, and I want something indoors for the other sessions. Rings need somewhere to hang from and I don't obviously have one. What do people in flats actually end up using?
Doorway bar for the flat, rings for the park. That combination costs well under £70 and covers everything.
Rings are strictly better than a fixed bar for training, but they need 2.4m of clearance to be useful and a doorway gives you maybe 2m. You can hang rings from a doorway bar but the range is so compressed that dips and anything below horizontal is out. Meanwhile a doorway bar does pull-ups, hanging leg raises and inverted rows if you set your feet on a chair, which is most of what you need indoors.
Take the rings to the park and hang them from the frame there — that's where they earn their keep.
Hadn't thought about taking rings out rather than mounting them. That solves the ceiling problem entirely.
They weigh about a kilo with straps and fit in a small bag. Half the people you see on park bars have a pair.
Two park sessions and three home sessions a week is plenty for years of progress. Don't over-solve the equipment problem — the limiting factor is almost never the hardware.
Slight alternative: a pair of parallettes and a resistance band set. Under £50, no mounting at all, and it covers pushing, dips at low height, L-sits, planche work and assisted rows. You'd get your pulling at the park.
Whatever you buy, weight-test it at ground level first with your full bodyweight plus a bounce. Finding out a doorway bar doesn't hold at the top of a pull-up is a memorable way to learn.
@barbell_bri · last yr. · 2 replies
Check your door frames before buying a leverage-style bar. They rely on a solid architrave and a fair bit of wall above the door. In a modern flat with plasterboard and a thin frame they either won't fit or will damage the wall, and you'll lose your deposit over a £25 bar.
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@treadmill_tara · last yr.
Second this. Also put a towel between the bar and the frame regardless — the marks otherwise are very obvious at move-out.
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