One of my biggest fitness goals is to do an unassisted pull-up in 2013. It's like my white whale. But with a lot of practice, determination, dedication and hard work I absolutely will do it this year. Well now it is going to be easier to get there with the help of Stud Bar. Mark from Studbarpullup.com was generous enough to send me one of his pull-up bars to review and help me reach that goal of an unassisted pull-up. A quick conversation about what size I needed and we were on our way. It is available in 3 different sizes to accommodate different ceiling heights. Since we were putting it in our garage we got the standard size which is for 9 foot ceilings and wall mountings. Let me tell you a little bit about Stud Bar as a company before I tell you anymore about the actual bar.
WHO/WHAT IS STUD BAR? - This is their mission statement directly from their site - These are the organizational mission and values we live by. Your pull up bar should look as good as you and be stronger than you. Your pull up should be made from welded 14 gauge powder coated steel designed and built to hang in a commercial gym and be overbuilt for your garage gym. Your pull up bar should be able to outlast you during a CrossFit W.O.D. and be strong enough to handle kipping pull ups. A pull up bar should be well designed and have its own patent. Your pull up bar should be a personal investment and encourage you to be fit. You will find pull ups fun and challenging. You should put the voided space of your garage ceiling to good use and install a pull up bar. Stud Bar will make you a stronger faster better human being. When you desire a gorilla proof ceiling or wall mountable pull up bar with outstanding customer service, get a Stud Bar pull up bar.
Everything I have seen so far proves that Mark and Stud Bar live up to their mission, vision and values.
He shipped it out immediately and it was on my front door step in no time. It then became a Saturday project for my husband. (Note the Star Wars pj's)
We broke out all of the pieces and we were ready to go. (By we, I mean my husband. Power tools are mans work) This is not to say that I didn't do what any nitpicking wife would have done and supervised the whole installation project.
Installation is really simple. Once you find the studs, you mark your holes, and drill pilot holes. Measure 48 inches across to mark your other holes. Using the pre-drilled holes as your guide, you partially drill the bolts in on one side. Attach the center bar and repeat the process on the other side and then go back and tighten all your bolts. We were missing a couple of adapter pieces we needed so we made a trip to the hardware store first.
Even though I'm sure he installed it correctly and with the added strength you get from the fact that it is made from welded 14 gauge steel with triangular gussets, I still made him try it out first. I didn't want to fall down and break my crown. So, here is my husband testing it out. Props to him for how long he held there while I attempted to get a decent photo of him doing a pull-up.
If you look through the photos of the installation process, you'll notice that there starts to be progressively more workout equipment in the background. We were so excited about getting the Stud Bar installed that it prompted us to spend our Saturday night gutting our garage, making garbage, recycle and donation runs and finally converting it to our home gym. Believe it or not, all of this equipment was in our living room prior to this.
I have all of my pull-up assistance bands that I got from Iron Woody Fitness hanging on the Stud Bar. It is a nice wide 48" bar. That allows for wide grip pull-ups and it also allows for me to have enough room to keep all my bands on it and just use whichever one I need at the time. I must confess that I am still using the black band. I have not graduated up to the blue or green yet. Practice makes perfect.
We have made use of the Stud Bar in a lot of our home workouts since we installed it. Pull-ups and burpees are the things I like to do the least which obviously means they are the things I need to do the most. In the photo above, the workout was 10 Pull-ups, 10 Push-ups, 10 Overhead Squats with a Sandbag - As many rounds as possible in 12 minutes.
As of yet, I don't have one single negative thing to say about the Stud Bar. If I had to pick one thing, it would only be that I am not better at pull-ups yet which has nothing to do with the bar. :)
This is such a superior product that even Greg Glassman, the Crossfit Founder endorses it and owns one.
Here are some places you can visit Stud Bar around the web.
To visit their Facebook - Click here
To Follow them on Twitter - Click here
To go to their website - Click here
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