Got myself a 'powerbar' chin up / pull up bar - mini review + pics

Caporegime
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13 May 2003
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Warwickshire
Hi all

My 'Powerbar' arrived today from Gizoo today. It cost me £30 with next day delivery (selected due to erratic Royal Mail deliveries). It's also available from such places as Boys' Stuff, Amazon, and UK Fitness Supplies.

It arrives fully constructed in a long thin cardboard box. You unfold the collapsable arms so that they lock into the latch / spring mechanism and that's it, constructed. No allen keys or bolts required.

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Now mount it on your door frame:

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Close up of how it hooks onto the door side:

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Full shot from the door side:

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Training myself just to hang for the moment!

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First impressions are - it's addictive! I keep wanting to go and do another chinup or attempt another pullup (I can't do even one strict pullup yet, hence this purchase really). It also seems fairly well built, though so far one of the rubber protectors keeps falling off whenever I remove it from the door frame, but really all that matters is that it's robust and won't collapse under your weight. It feels very safe and secure and can be put up and taken down in five seconds.

The bar quotes a maximum weight limit of 20 stone.

It has no grip on the bar; the gripping part of the bar is literally a bar, full stop. Fair enough as this is normally all you'd expect on a pull up bar.

You can only use the upper bar for exercises when it's on the wall, due to the fact that the bar relies on leverage from the lower bar against the side of the door frame for stability.

The only thing the bar comes with is an instruction leaflet telling you how to unfold and mount it, as well as giving some handy pointers on the exercises, such as, 'Pull ups and chin ups are not easy, so do not be surprised if you can only one or two. Practice them little and often and if you stick with it, you will soon notice an improvement in your strength and physique.' :p.

You can also do wide / narrow grip press ups at a slight incline if that suits you, as well of course as hanging leg raises, if you can do them properly, unlike myself.

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Further to Benny's question: the width of the bar is 900mm / 3 ft. The instructions recommend a doorway between 685mm and 785mm. It's probably worth testing it on your door frame carefully before going for it.

So there you have it, a decent pull up bar that requires zero drilling, is easily collapsable and storable, and allows you to exercise from a nice and high position!
 
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I have the powerbar myself and really like it. It's worth mentioning the iron gym as well though if your thinking of buying one.

I looked at that but your hands have to be inside the door frame. A lot of the comments were that this was not wide enough for acceptable w/g pull ups, so I went for this instead.

Once I master pull ups at this width I can test myself on the rack at the bar at the gym with a wider grip, if I feel the need.

This morning I managed 5 chin ups before failure. Pitiful!
 
How much marking does using this cause to the doorframe? Have been considering getting one of these but as the flat i'm in is rented I dont want to cause any damage to doorfarmes that I could possible end up being charged for.

Cheers

Haven't looked yet, but my doorframes are metal so I doubt it'd do much. It cannot fail to eventually mark the paintwork visible on the side of the frames however, so when we sell this house it'll just need a lick of gloss I'd imagine.

If you have flimsy looking wooden door frames and are concerned about smashing them up and getting rogered by the landlord, then I'd just use the ones at the gym!
 
Well I can now do four WG pull ups with strict form, so progress has been fairly good!

Some of you will be like 'well the grip isn't that wide' but I think it's as wide as it needs to be.

Now aiming for 10 reps at bodyweight by Christmas.
 
I'm looking to get one of these. Which would you suggest, the one in the original post (revised model) or this one http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produ.../3|cat_14419293|Toning+equipment|23846075.htm

The orignal is around £5-10 more expensive.

Looking at how that model sits in the doorframe, it has two obvious disadvantages: it sits lower in the frame meaning you'd have to bend your legs more, maybe a problem if you're tall, and secondly the widest possible grip is no wider than the door frame, meaning you can only go so wide on your pullups. The one in my OP fits in the door frame such that you hang from a higher point and your hands can grip at a point wider than the outside of the door frame.

On the other hand, it has grips for closed palm pullups (or whatever they're called) which mine doesn't, so it depends on what's important to you. It also looks like it has better protection for the door frame than mine.

The Argos one:



How many reps can you do now Robbie?

I can now do 19 chinups, 16 pullups (close grip), and 10 pullups (wide grip) with bodyweight until failure. I haven't been doing it religiously all this time unfortunately otherwise I'm sure it would be better.

But considering I couldn't do a single wide grip before I started (trained with hanging excercises and slow negatives) it's not too bad I suppose. Along with shifting excess flab through cycling to work, it's really helped my overall physique I think. Planning to get back into weights also later this month.
 
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