Homemade Stall Bars: A Basement Project

Holy crap how am I gonna make this if I don't have all the cutting tools? I'm also not a handy person. This seems impossible

You can buy them online or get the wood and get some quotes from a local furniture maker.

In my experience, the bigger you are the more offset you need.
 

The only tools you need to make stall bars are a saw and a drill( drill holes and mount stall bars).
You can buy a hole cutting bit.

David Barclay said:

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

Hi David - thanks for sharing your stall bar project.  I'm in the planning stages for my own and am wondering about your comment that you can't do GHRs on these bars.  Not sure why you can't do them, and the best modification to make them possible.  Thanks in advance!

How can I mount stall bars in my basement if there is insulation covering the concrete? The vertical frames around the insulation are made of sheet metal which isn't very stable. The only strong points for mounting are the floor joists and the concrete floor. I want to buy these stall bars, however I need to plan the mounting. https://www.artimex-sport.com/ca/products/stall-bars-calgary-6-7-1-2-beech-wood-code-253-reha-beech-2609

It looks like you're going to need to build some sort of structure to attach to, maybe coming off the large joist seen in the photo, or extending up to the ceiling.

Cole Dano said:

It looks like you're going to need to build some sort of structure to attach to, maybe coming off the large joist seen in the photo, or extending up to the ceiling.

Instead of buying some, I built my own. Wood screws were used to anchor the top to the ceiling support beam. "Tapcon" cement screws were used to anchor the bottom to the floor. Pilot holes were drilled for the wood screws, and a hammer drill was used for the pilot holes in the floor. To prevent the dowels from spinning, I drilled 1/8" pilot holes into the 2 x 6 railings (1.5" deep) and fastened them with wood screws.

My free trial on ImageShack expired, so heres a pic of my stall bars on imgur: http://imgur.com/M5qSAQT

Cheers, from Calgary!

What is the recommended/ minimum gap/ spacing between a dowel and the back wall? 

crashnburn said:

What is the recommended/ minimum gap/ spacing between a dowel and the back wall? 

My dowels are spaced 6 inches apart (the middle of the dowels). Not sure what you mean about the back wall space. Stall bars usually mount on the wall studs. I mounted mine to the ceiling beam because my wall doesn't have wood studs for mounting.

Crashnburn means the distance between the dowels and the wall the stall bars are attached to.

As you need to be able to stand on the dowels, I used this distance as a rough guide. One hand width- the back of your hand plus your thumb.

This should be in proportion to your feet.

NickM said:

Crashnburn means the distance between the dowels and the wall the stall bars are attached to.

As you need to be able to stand on the dowels, I used this distance as a rough guide. One hand width- the back of your hand plus your thumb.

This should be in proportion to your feet.

Yes, this is what I was asking for, but I am a bit confused on visualizing as I read the words. 

// Thumb sticking by the Hand/ Palm {i.e Hand Width. + Thumb Width} or Thumb stretched out at Right angles to hand/ palm {Hand Width. + Thumb Length}

// How would I make this proportionate to my feet? Or should I just measure using "certain part" of my feet? 

Wow, I am impressed, 55,000 views of me banging away in my Dad's basement on these bars!

I still use them, and am currently feeling a nice burn from my reverse leg lifts this morning.

A couple more tips from five years of usage:

- When you install your dowels into the pre-drilled sockets, make sure your pilot hole for the screw is not over-drilled. I am finding two of my bars have stripped out, and once one side goes, they are free to rotate in the sockets. And in order to correct this, short of figuring out how to inject some glue into the socket, is complete disassembly.

- Customize the height of your bottom bar to make sure you can get a good grip for doing glut / ham raises. In other words, kneel with your back to the wall, and have a friend hold a dowel above your feet. Lean forward and see what height is best to allow for a solid foot / dowel engagement.

cheers,

David

Am I the only one who can't see the pics for the original post?

It looks like the original photos were hosted on an external service and are unfortunately no longer available. 

If you want to have a look it will be a while before I get around to re-posting the pics, so PM me with your email address and I will send you a dropbox link to the originals.

thank you all for the interest,

David

This looks like it was once an amazing thread, but currently all the images are broken links.

Any chance that the images still exist somewhere?  I'd love to see what all the fuss was about, as I'm looking to do the same thing.

Jesse

the post it is quite old, i do not think.

Those are incredible David!

Hey there David or anyone else who can help me! I am building stall bars and after already ordering the dowels I am realizing I probably don't have enough ( I have 10 3 foot dowels of 1.5" hardwood). Locally I can only get 1 1/4" dowels. I actually haven't started Foundations yet and am familiar with only a handful of exercise done on the stall bars so forgive my ignorance. My question is first off- are the highest rungs (except the pullup bar) used for any weight bearing exercises? I am basically trying to figure out if I can get away with using some of the 1 1/4" dowels for the top rungs so I can get this thing built this weekend. Or would the bottom dowels make more sense to use 1 1/4"? I am only 115 lbs if that matters... Any help is much appreciated. Thank you!

Hi Hannah, 

Good luck with building a set of stall bars! Can't wait to see videos of you training on them.  The top rung is used for hanging leg raise, which means the top bar gets the most use. 

Build then sturdy!

Thanks Tanya, I'll definitely use the stronger dowel for the topmost bar. 

You can find all the images by using wayback machine. It is basically an Internet archive of the web pages in a certain point of time in history.

It not only gives you the content of the web page but it also gives you the visual representation how the web page looked like at that certain moment. Cool thing, great for playing around and retrieving lost information from the web

Here is the original thread on GB forum from 1st of November 2014.

Cheers!

p.s. David, thanks a lot for this step-by-step tutorial. It will help a lot in my own project.