Exercise is a popular resolution to make, and for good reason...it's always worthwhile, it makes you feel good, and you'll love the results. But, so often, you get a piece of equipment and it turns out that you don't use it quite as often as you had intended. Eventually, your treadmill becomes a clothing rack and the stair stepper confounds you with the space it's taking up. But hope is not lost...you need a more simple tool that helps you generate the results you desire. What you've been looking for is none other than a pull up bar.
In your childhood, you could go to the playground and find the monkey bars, and have some fun exercising with them all you wanted to. Growing up, though, you outgrew the bars, and there is very little that you can find to recover such an easy and effective exercise for your chest and back muscles. In comes the humble pull up bar. With a simple and sturdy construction, storage is easy, and usage is even easier.
Unless you opt for a permanent installation, most pull up bars attach to the top of a door frame, needing nothing but your own body weight to provide leverage to keep it in place. It can be set to any height to suit your own needs, and is completely non-damaging to your home. Extensive padding on the touch points where it hugs the wall keep this handy tool from leaving so much as a mark.
To use a pull up bar, simply hook the top around to touch the top of the door frame opposite to where you intend to exercise. Pull the remainder of the bar to touch the door frame on your side, stabilizing it with constant light pressure. When you exercise, find a grip that feels comfortable to you, whether you prefer your hands in a narrow, shoulder width, or wider grip.
Also, you work different muscle groups with an overhand grip versus an underhand, so make sure to try them both. Once you are satisfied with your grip, raise your body without swinging your legs until your chin or the back of your neck touches the bar.
Slowly let your body lower back to the start position, and you've completed a repetition, or 'rep.' Be sure to decide how many reps you wish to perform with each set, and for best results and a good muscle workout, do your best to complete at least three full sets. The most common set is composed of anywhere between eight to fifteen reps.
Even as great as the ease of use is, there is always cost to consider. Fortunately, buying a pull up bar doesn't mean that you are purchasing what will be nothing more than an expensive clothing rack. The reason? Pull up bars are some of the least costly exercise tools you will ever come across.
The upper class of the pull up bar is around $80, with these models allowing for complete control of the workout you desire. The more cheap pull up bars still give an effective workout, for an amazing $25, well worth the money even without looking at the $800-1400 you might spend on a treadmill.
When it comes to exercise, you don't need high tech gadgets to contort your abs into a pretzel. Your body knows what it needs to be powerful. People get in shape with push ups and sit ups, two of the most basic exercises possible, without any tools at all. Unfortunately, suspended bars are rarely found by themselves, however we may fondly remember the monkey bars of our childhood. By getting a pull up bar, you reclaim that slice of playground fitness in the comfort of your own home.
Ignore the Fat-Blaster and the Muscle-Cruncher commercials you see on television, you can get healthy with simple motions and workouts like you perform on your pull up bar. With some dedication and a healthy dose of willpower, you'll be able to watch your resolutions come through to reveal a stronger, slimmer you.
