York Fitness Chinning Bar

I recently purchase a York Chinning Bar for a small £7.99 from Argos with the full intention of doing daily pull ups in the comfort of my home.

The first thing you have to say about it is that its as cheap as anything for anyone who wishes to get fit. The second is that before you buy it have to admit to yourself that if there is no pain then there is no gain.

The bar fits in to your standard door frame and comes adjustable ...
...stretched to 108 cm, measured my door and realised the bar was more than big enough. It wasn't until I got home that I found that my door was actually to small. However, my plan changed and I just moved it to another room, but be sure to check the sizes first.

The chinning bar comes well packed with a few basic sit up instructions on the side of the box in what I would say are like badly drawn cartoons.

When you open ... more

I recently purchase a York Chinning Bar for a small £7.99 from Argos with the full intention of doing daily pull ups in the comfort of my home.

The first thing you have to say about it is that its as cheap as anything for anyone who wishes to get fit. The second is that before you buy it have to admit to yourself that if there is no pain then there is no gain.

The bar fits in to your standard door frame and comes adjustable to fit various sizes. Me being me read that it stretched to 108 cm, measured my door and realised the bar was more than big enough. It wasn't until I got home that I found that my door was actually to small. However, my plan changed and I just moved it to another room, but be sure to check the sizes first.

The chinning bar comes well packed with a few basic sit up instructions on the side of the box in what I would say are like badly drawn cartoons.

When you open up the packaging you get a single sheet of A4 telling you everything from how to fit it, safety in use and not much else. I was a little disappointed with this as it doesn't give much help to the beginner.

The bar itself is made of good quality metal and is very well made for 7.99.

Fitting it to the door frame is easy. You get the bar, 2 end cups and some screws. I mounted mine buy putting the bar in the cups and loosely tightening it to the door frame. I then got a spirit level and made sure it was level. Then I marked around the cups with a pen so I knew where to mount it. After taking it down again I screwed the cups on to the door and fitted the bar. Lengthening the bar is easy as you just twist one end and it gets longer or shorter as required.

One thing I did notice was that the instructions were not so good as to tell you how high to mount the bar in the door frame. At 6'3" it isn't easy for me. I left mine about 9 inches below the top of the door. Mistake, its so easy to forget the top of the door and bang your head when your using the bar. Saying that, any lower and you have to seriously tuck your legs in which for me creates unnecessary stress on my back.

As an extra you also get a couple of little stoppers so that you can mount the bar on the base of the door frame and use it as a sit up bar. Leaving it 7 - 8 inches or so up you tuck your feet under and your on your way to serious abs.

All this aid and done when it comes to using the bar the instructions don't tell you anything useful about hw to properly use it. I found that a little time spent searching on google was enough to come across a fully picture loaded training program on what to do with it. Its not just pull ups or sit ups but everything….

All in all this was a great price but I am still not convinced at how much I am going to use it in my training schedule. We shall see. Still, if you're a fan of non weights exercise than I would probably say there is nothing better. Good quality piece of kit for next to no cost.
 

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