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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