No More Mosquito Madness

Pull-up bar (aka laundry hanger)

When the simple solution didn't work, my quest was renewed. This week, the search ended and all is right with the world. My arms are about to hurt so good.

Awhile back I mentioned wanting to buy a pull-up bar for the house so I didn't have to stop at the Sand Run Parcours Trail and get eaten by mosquitoes. When my birthday rolled around, I asked for and received one of those contraptions that wedge into a doorway, but discovered that the wood molding in our nearly hundred-year-old house wouldn't support it. Now, the problem is solved.

Amazon.com had a comparably priced joist-mounted pull-up bar (the one you see above). I placed the order Monday, and it already arrived last night from an independent seller. Shipping wasn't cheap, but it was fast.

The bar is SOLID. As you can probably see in the photo, it provides a variety of grips (close, wide and neutral) for pull-ups, chin-ups and whatever you call the other possible workouts. It is mounted onto a floor joist in the basement. It took four long carriage bolts, which required a bit of drilling. I needed Mrs. Viper's help to hold the bar so I could mark the holes, but otherwise it was simple to install.

I thought about buying materials from a hardware store to make my own bar, but since the doorway bar was a gift, I put some of the refund money toward this prefabricated bar.

This morning, I did five pull-ups and five chin-ups. I want to work my way up to 20 of each and then see what other exercises I can do. And while I have a hard time getting up in the morning to run, it's really easy for me to stumble down to the basement and knock out a few pull-ups before getting ready for the day.