Build a gymnastics bar yourself - advantages and disadvantages

A gymnastics bar for your own garden is something fine for the whole family. Children can play with it and it is suitable for sports horizontal bars also perfect. The trend in 2018 is towards fitness such as calisthenics and bodyweight training. There are two options on how to get to the realization of your goal and get hold of a horizontal bar. On the one hand, you can buy the necessary materials yourself and put it together yourself using the DIY method, and on the other hand, you can buy a ready-made gymnastics bar on the Internet on Ebay or Amazon or simply in a shop near you. Of course, there are a number of points to consider with both variants before you go shopping. An outdoor horizontal bar is exposed to natural weather and must therefore be prepared and maintained accordingly. You should also think about the size of the posts beforehand. 10-20 cm make a significant difference in price. What exactly you should consider in advance, tips and further answers to your questions are explained in the following.

Build a gymnastics bar yourself - what do I have to consider and how does it work?

Before you start building, you should look around your garden and look for a suitable place for your horizontal bar. In large garden areas, this should not be in the middle, but rather as far as possible at the edge. If you intend to swing back and forth on the horizontal bar, then consider at least your overall height plus another meter for arm length and a safe distance from surrounding hedges, plants and other objects to ensure enough space and safe handling. Before you blindly drive to the nearest hardware store and randomly look for suitable material, you should definitely write a shopping list. In order to make a gymnastics bar yourself, you need, among other things, a pull-up bar, which should ideally be made of stainless steel. In addition, there are two square pieces of wood with a diameter of around 9 cm, between which the pole will later be attached. Also make sure that the wood is pressure treated so that it is weather resistant and you get more out of it. You can also choose a different model, omit a support pillar and attach the crossbar to the house instead. From experience, about three to four sacks of concrete are needed for embedding in the ground. This is filled into two PVC pipes, which should be about one meter long. You will also need various screws, nuts, washers and caps.

Now how do I start...

At the selected location, dig the required holes 60cm - 70cm deep and about 25cm wide. Be careful not to make the excavations too wide, because later the plastic pipes should go in here and have as firm a footing as possible. These should be completely below ground level, meaning if they stick out a little you can ram them further into the ground with a rubber mallet, earth rammer or other suitable tool. The tighter the plastic tubes are, the more stable the wooden posts will be afterwards. In addition, there is the visual aspect, because if parts are still sticking out of the lawn, it doesn't look particularly nice. If you decide at a later point in time to dismantle the gymnastics equipment again, then anchoring constructions can also be hidden more easily under a new layer of lawn and can therefore remain in the ground without you having to laboriously dig them out. If you want to build a double bar, you have to follow the same steps, but dig a third hole in the position where you want the third pillar to go. The best idea would be to use a batten and two screw clamps so that the distance between the two beams is also identical below. Once you've fixed them in the right position, straight alignment shouldn't be a problem. You should now fill in the remaining gaps with some of the excavated earth to provide more stability. In the meantime, tamp them down several times to compact them so that a greater hold is created.

…and how does it continue?

Once you have completed the first steps, you can place the posts in the recesses. Get help from another person, because this step can quickly become very strenuous for untrained people due to the heavy weight. After correct alignment, the cement can be mixed and then poured into the space between the pipe and the support pile as an anchor. When you have waited some time and the concrete has hardened, all you have to do is fix the bar at the desired height. The setup is now complete and your gymnastics equipment should be stable. But before you use it for the first time, you should still wait a few days. So you can be sure that everything has hardened long enough and can withstand all loads.

What could possibly go wrong?

Things don't always go smoothly with the project "Building a gymnastics bar yourself". Very few of us are experienced do-it-yourselfers who always have the perfect plan and always know exactly what to do. Mistakes happen, especially when working from home, which isn't exactly everyday. For example, the hole can be dug unevenly, the plastic pipes not inserted correctly, or the cement mixed incorrectly, so that things are poorly constructed and thus later straightened into an awkward position. But then it is too late and the posts are already firmly anchored. Adjusting screws can no longer be screwed in properly or they warp and thus break. Something like that doesn't like to happen and is also difficult to avoid. Who wants to have an unsuccessful attempt at setting up a piece of fitness equipment in the garden, which in the end may not even be usable? Because if the posts are built incorrectly, then no more pull-up bars can be attached there and consequently no more pull-ups can be done on them, let alone any other exercises.

Features high quality crossbars

High-quality gymnastics bars are characterized above all by simple assembly and high resilience. In terms of strength and durability, rods made of stainless steel can hardly be surpassed, since no rust can settle on them, even outdoors. Depending on how much you weigh, you should also make sure that the gymnastics bar has sufficient resilience. This is often stated in the description of the item. You should choose at least one load strength that is twice your body weight. This is very important, because during exercises such as swings up, swings or other loads, a higher force than your own body weight acts on the gymnastics bar. So if you weigh 90 kilos, then start looking for a pull-up bar that is at least suitable for loads of up to 180 kilos. The more resilient, the better, because you will not have any problems at the top. In the other direction, on the other hand, if it cannot withstand sufficient loads, it can happen that it will not hold up at some point and, in the worst case, you will seriously injure yourself. It's better to spend a few euros more and buy a tested and durable bar than to want to save at this point and regret it in the end.