Homemade Stall Bars: A Basement Project

[David Barclay]

After an enjoyable number of years of endurance athletics, including a couple of Ironman triathlons and several marathons, I found myself looking for other ways to keep in shape. Throw in the time suck that is endurance training, and with a young family to boot, I really needed something more practical than just sitting on a bicycle for six hour stretches.

After a couple of years of general weight training I gravitated towards body weight conditioning, which ultimately lead me to the Gymnastic Bodies book and website. And here I have stopped; and am generally convinced that I have discovered a training method that certainly ranks as the most effective for time and results, and further adds the important elements of flexibility and mobility which fits into my ‘I want to age gracefully criteria.’ At 35, after almost a year of this type of conditioning, I feel far stronger and fitter than I have ever been.

I also like the minimal equipment theories of gymnastic conditioning. Get a pull up bar, a set of rings, and away you go… Or do you…. Surely that is all I need, or is it…? More to the point, what more do I want? Let’s see, I have a basement. I have an open wall. I have a workshop. I like making stuff. Okay, I want a set of stall bars. Do I need them, not really, but they will be extremely useful, and good for my goal of doing a human flag. (I want to be a hero for my kids, is that such a bad thing to want? ) There are lots of really cool exercises that I can do, and they will be of real benefit.

So I decided to make a set.

The first set was general research. Most commercially available sets where made of some type of hardwood. Some from laminated, other more expensive ones from solid wood. I also looked at some other home made options. I saw that some people had made sets with 2 by 6 pine uprights and poplar dowels. This was a pretty cost effective solution, but to be honest, I felt a bit nervous about doing human flags over my concrete floor with a softwood solution. This is not a criticism of those who did; I full appreciate I probably over engineered my bars, but I do like the peace of mind.

I decided the strongest, most cost effective option, was to use hardwood plywood laminates. I bought two 4 x 4 sheets of 3/4 inch Russian Birch. I then ordered 12 1 3/8 inch birch doweling from a wood supply store. I spoke to the order desk woman personally, explained my application, and she made a point of checking to see that all the dowels where nice and straight. (Common problem when buying doweling, always test them on the floor to make sure they roll well.)

I then loaded up the station wagon and went over to my Dad’s place for the afternoon. Yes, 35 year old guys still need to get their Dad’s help every so often. In this case, he has a bigger workshop than I do, plus a table saw and a drill press. Both very useful for this project.

I’ll explain the rest of the construction story picture by picture.

The birch doweling and plywood artfully posing before their date with the table saw. This might sound strange, but if you are someone who appreciates wood and craftsmanship, you would love these pieces. 95% of my wood DIY is spend with construction grade wood, so to use pieces like this was a real pleasure.

My basement ceiling is 7 feet high. (Most commercial bars are 8 feet high) So, this is where the math comes in. I decided to make the uprights 4 inches wide. So, take two four by four foot pieces of plywood, and figure out how to make a seven foot tall unit, with the uprights having overhanging extensions at the top. Furthermore, the pieces had to overlap by at least 4 to 6 inches in the middle of the upright, for the purposes of strength.

Dad and I spent at least ten minutes with a ruler, pen and eraser trying to create the perfect pattern on the four by fours. This was the result.

Note the overlaps in the middle of the upright.

The unit laid out on the floor, with a lovely piece of maple for the cross piece that Dad had left over from another project.

The doweling being cut to length. Originally four feet long, they are cut to be three feet inside the unit, with 1 ¾ inches on either side to fit inside the uprights.

Now, gluing the laminates together. We didn’t use white glue; this is not a hobby shop. Dad had some commercial grade wood glue left over, which is far stronger than white glue. For further strength, the inside two plywood laminates where also screwed together with #8 1 ¼ inch wood screws. (With glue of course, and counter-sunk so they would not interfere with the outside plywood laminate.)

After the glue was dry, I then drilled the holes. Each upright is now 2 ¼ inches thick. The drill press was set to go no deeper than 1 ¾ . This puts the doweling through 2 ½ plywood sheets, but still leaves a bit of wood to firmly attach the dowel. And always use safety equipment!

Belt sand to get the edges off, then palm sand for the smooth touch.

The varnished pieces ready for installation.

Installed! I love the utilitarian aesthetic of the laminated plywood. I also love how the camera flash brings out an ancient chalk drawing on the wall.

Close up of the bars… lovely.

Mounting hardware. Nice deep set concrete anchors. Note the round end Robertson screws as well. Those are #10 1 ½ inch screws holding the dowels. I could have countersunk the screws, but I liked the look of the round heads against the wood.

Now, what shall I do with all of these leftovers… These are just five out of the remaining 12.

A quick trip to the camping store, a couple pieces of webbing later, and I have nice push up bars. Makes it easy to transition from pull ups on the rings to quickly dropping down for some pushups. And they look pretty cool as well.

yours,

David Barclay

[gymgreg]

You did a pretty awesome job. These have to be the best DIY stall bars I have seen to date.

This should be a sticky post.

Thanks for sharing.

[Cole Dano]

That my friend is CRAFTSMANSHIP!

I thoroughly enjoyed your post, and find myself longing for such a nice wood-shop, can i come over and play?

[Razz]

DAMN NICE!!!

[David Barclay]

Hi there, thanks for the nice words about my project. I still find myself making excuses to go downstairs and have yet another look at them... It was a very satisfying project, and much more rewarding than making yet another set of book shelves.

I already have some ideas for the mark 2 version. For starters, can't do GHRs from this version. I am pretty annoyed I did not foresee that, but if I really feel the urge I can modify them.

Please let me know if you have any questions, or need advice on this sort of project. I am flattered it has become a sticky, and will of course make myself available to answer any questions.

thanks,

David

[Coach Sommer]

Beautifully done, David!

My suggestion for further refinement would be to place a small board across the rear of the stall bars somewhat near the top and bottom to use as anchor points for the concrete bolts. This approach is what I use at the gym and it is very solid.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[David Picó García]

Loved specially the chalk paint

Great, really great Stall Bars. Tons of exercises and stretches that can't be done otherwise.

[Alvaro Antolinez]

Really nice!!! I love them, eventually I´ll try to make some myself. One question, is not better to left the bars with out varnish? or at least slightly sanded, that way they don´t become slippery.

[Joshua Naterman]

Those are incredible. Those are the stall bars MY stall bars want to be when they grow up!!!

[David Barclay]

Thanks everyone, a couple comments on the comments.

Coach - good point on the mounting points. At this point I have two long wood screws on the top cross piece that enter the two ceiling joists. This way I have mount points into wood that travel on a vertical plane, in addition to the horizontal wall mounts. At this point I am confident it is anchored sufficiently, but I am not concluding it yet. I think your suggestion will be used if I make a second set, as I think it probably would look a bit cleaner than my metal brackets, and give me more space for more anchor points. Just yesterday I noticed one of my concrete mounts is a bit loose, which tells me I probably used too large a drill bit on my hammer drill for the size of masonry screws that I used. This does not bode well for the rest of the anchors, but the saving grace is that I am only doing HLLs and stretching on the bars, as I have yet to figure out how to incorporate flag training into the WODs. I will replace them all with lead anchors in a month or two.

(Why would I make a second set? Because it is fun, that's why! But I would need a home for the first set, and I haven't really got fully used to using them yet> )

Serotonin - every day I find something new I can do on the bars. Getting that 'how did I live without these things' feeling already.

Omegant - I did consider not varnishing the bars, for the very reason you mentioned. But I got caught up in the aesthetic, without reference to the practical. That being said, I have had no issues. I don't find the slippy at all - certainly no more than a typical metal upright or a chin up bar in a playground. If it becomes an issue I can always rough them up with a bit of fine grain sandpaper.

Slizz - thanks for that, and with all your DIY stuff, I imagine you could bang a set like this without any issue.

cheers,

David

[swarovski]

david, I'm impressed. Have you ever had any idea on how to build a sort of vertical knee rise for the use of gymnastic training? I haven't had a good one so far but I'm trying to figure out how to put together parallel bars and high bar in that fashion, I'm sure from what I see that you can come up with something better than myself.

Hope the idea of working on a new project will intrigue you.

[Carlos]

Great job!

I am inspired, I am heading to the workshop now and start drawing the plans.

How much $$$ did you end up spending?

[David Barclay]

Hi Swarovski, funny you should ask, because I did seriously consider knocking together one of those. However, I decided against it for a couple reasons. The primary one was that I could buy one used for fractions of the price it would take to make one properly. I do have access to a welder, but getting all the ducks lined up was to much. (You could use wood, but nice wood for a unit like that would be very expensive.) Now that I have my stall bars, I really don't need one anymore, so I am glad I did not make the effort.

Carlos:

Under $200. Biggest expense was the doweling, but as they are responsible for holding me up in the air, I didn't want to cut corners. Quality comes at a price, but considering these units cost over $500 plus shipping, I still saved a lot of money. I have seem people do them for under 60 bucks with large pine uprights and poplar doweling. I am sure that is a fine solution as well.

cheers,

David

[swarovski]

thanks for your reply david, but I have to disagree as those dipping handles on VKR don't allow any real PB work. Luckily, now that I can manage more space, I've found the perfect solution for GHR, archups, PB and rungs for HSPU, rings row, rings pushups, etc. for less than 100 bucks and no hassle!! I know it sounds too good to be true but next time you go shopping at a big DIY store have a look at this kind of scaffold...

http://www.facalscale.it/images/trabattelli/pony2.gif

sorry, but I've just discovered that attachment features have been disabled. I don't know how long this link will work as it's a product on sale, it may be discontinued at any time.

[Sande]

Nice job with that! :wink:

[anhkun]

can you or should you mount stall bars on brick walls?

[Coach Sommer]

can you or should you mount stall bars on brick walls?

Absolutely, this is how mine are mounted at our facility. Just be sure to use the proper expanding concrete bolts.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Alexander Svensson]

I recently bought a pair of stall bars and my walls are concrete, how deep would you suggest drilling into the wall to make sure the stall bars remain solid?

[Joshua Slocum]

I recently bought a pair of stall bars and my walls are concrete, how deep would you suggest drilling into the wall to make sure the stall bars remain solid?

 

Use two 3" holes with a 3/8" diameter bolt on either side, and nothing will pull those bars out of the wall. What you want is lag bolts (they are essentially big screws with a hex-head so you can use a wrench to tighten them) and lag shields (similar to drywall anchors: they expand when the lag-bolts screw into them). Be extremely particular about making sure you insert the lag shields in the correct orientation: the end that goes in first should be the one that expands. 

 

can you or should you mount stall bars on brick walls?

 

That's a perfect way to mount them. 

 

 

For both brick and concrete, and alternative to lag-screws is to use a powder fastening system. Such tools extremely similar to standard pneumatic nail-guns, except they use a tiny gunpowder charge, which gives them enough power to drive barbed nails into solid concrete or other hard materials. These are extremely strong fasteners, and it takes much less time to install compared to lag-shields. 

[Vladimir Kelman]

Thank you for a valuable information.  (Here's a related post on this forum.)

There is another resource for building your own - http://www.stallbars.com/  I wonder what experienced guys from this site think about it.

 

I bought 3B Scientific Eucalyptus Wood Stall Bar on Amazon. Unfortunately, due to round rungs located (I guess) too close to each other, it's painful to a one's back to raise legs and especially raise them to turn upside down - which was my favorite exercise back in Russia.

When I used a stall bar in a park in Moscow 30 years ago, rungs of that ladder weren't round, they had almost flat front surface (rounded just a bit) and the distance between rungs was bigger. As a result, when I raised my legs while hanging on a stall bar, my back was supported by *flat* parts of rungs. So, it wasn't painful at all to fully raise legs and to even turn upside down. I did it a lot, it was a superb training. Again, with round rungs it is painful.    

I'm thinking about writing to my relatives living in Moscow and asking them to took pictures and exact measures of that stall bar (it's still standing!), so I would made an exact copy by myself here in Maryland.

 

So, I'm know waiting for detailed measurements of that stall bar from Moscow to build my own.

[FREDERIC DUPONT]

Would folding a yoga mat over one of the higher rugs ease up the pain of the round rugs pressing on your back?

[Mathew Migliaccio]

David, after reading your post inspired to make a set.  It is still a work in progress:

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the top bar offset i have seen dimensions from 2" to 3.5"   Are there any advantages or disadvantages of having a smaller or larger offset?  I am not sure how far I should offset the top rung on my stall bars. 

 

 

 

 

[Kamali Downey]

Would folding a yoga mat over one of the higher rugs ease up the pain of the round rugs pressing on your back?

Bump, good question....anybody?

[Cole Dano]

Difference form 3.5"-2" isn't that much. It's a matter of how open you shoulders are. If in doubt go towards 3.5". Iirc my offset is 3 inches.

[Sam Wan]

Just wanna say thanks for all the info on this topic (offsets, wood types, diameter, etc etc): Just installed a completed set of stall bars last night.

http://imgur.com/a/hXar4


Also, if you're in Adelaide, AUS and want to buy stall bars you can get them here (http://greenplay.com.au/accessories/GYMNASTICS/wall-bars) for about $330AUD (+ gst)

edit: Just realised the post seemed like I was advertising my stuff >.<   Not affiliated, etc etc... Just thought I'd post about buying stall bars, because their website looks like they they don't sell to the general public (which they do)