Lidl Chin-Up Bar

TheAmateur

Hi all,
I've had a door chin-up bar from Lidl for a few years, think it's this one here. It's got two telescopic ends you can roll out, and then to tighten it finally, you roll the centre part. You can also screw the ends into the door frame, which I've done.

The problem is, the centre part won't stop rolling. This means that if I grip it on the "wrong" side when doing a chin-up, I roll the centre part and loosen the bar, and if I grip on the "right" side, my grip ends up being rolled until my knuckles have nearly rolled under the bar, which is not a comfortable position.

Does anyone have experience with bars like these? Surely there's a way to stop the centre bit from rolling once the bar is tight to the door frame? I see a random screw in the middle of the bar, but I've tightened and loosened it and it seems to have no effect. If I can't fix this I think i'll buy a different bar.

farmchoice

i had one of those bars, they are ****e. they will destroy your door frame and one of these days will come off as you pull up cracking you on the top of the skull while your knees smash into the floor, its quite an experience.
you need to get one like this a much much better job .http://www.irish-lifting.com/doorway-gym-pe-270.html

AntiVirus

Why don't you just turn around?

And the chin up bar above will also damage your door but it is a much better bar for doing chin/pull ups.

farmchoice

in fairness i have had that bar from irish lifting up for the last 18 months and thre is not a mark on the door frame. now it is not exactly the same as the one in the picture but the method of attachment to the door seems to be the same.

TheAmateur

AntiVirus wrote: »

Why don't you just turn around?

And the chin up bar above will also damage your door but it is a much better bar for doing chin/pull ups.

Unfortunately, even if I do turn around, it still rolls (but doesn't loosen which is slightly better), but still the grip ends up being uncomfortable because of the roll.

farmchoice wrote: »

i had one of those bars, they are ****e. they will destroy your door frame and one of these days will come off as you pull up cracking you on the top of the skull while your knees smash into the floor, its quite an experience.
you need to get one like this a much much better job .http://www.irish-lifting.com/doorway-gym-pe-270.html

Yea, it's already damaged the frame a bit. That bar does look better, but the thing I like about the current bar is its small size and the fact that I can still close the door. Also, I'm sure I got it to stop rolling once, but then I had to take it down. Did yours roll all the time too? What's the screw in the middle for?

farmchoice

i dont recall it rolling like you describe. although after the incident where it came off i always tighented it really tight before use (adding to the damage to the door frame)

the bigger one is easy to take on and off to close the door although it is a lump of a thing so you need somewhere to store it when not in use.

rubadub

TheAmateur wrote: »

What's the screw in the middle for?

The screw holds in place a threaded device inside that the outer ends screw into. It will not stop it rolling by tightening as you found. It just makes it easier to manufacture, if you took it all the way out it might be hard to get back together.

farmchoice wrote: »

i dont recall it rolling like you describe. although after the incident where it came off i always tighented it really tight before use (adding to the damage to the door frame)

Mine is tightened very tight and does not roll, you can use the grips to get a good turn on it, twisting the centre bar rather than the end bars. Mine is between 2 walls. Problem is if you go really tight it will push the doorframe out, and then 'settle' there, and then in a weeks time I expect you can get another half twist on it, so it will slowly weaken the frame if you keep re tightening.

You might get away with wrapping duct tape around the ends connecting the centre bar to the outer ones. Or jamming something like paper or foam into the gap between the thin outer bars and thick middle one. This might just give enough friction to stop it.

If you do get the irish lifting style one your other may still be of some use. I have hung 2 webbing straps from a chin up bar and used a second chinup bar like a trapeeze lower down. This allows you set it to a specific height for body rows or for doing negative chinups without the need for a chair (bend you knees as you go lower down).

AntiVirus

TheAmateur wrote: »

That bar does look better, but the thing I like about the current bar is its small size and the fact that I can still close the door.

The handy thing about the chin up bar in the link above is that it takes a couple of seconds to put up and a couple of seconds to take down.

AntiVirus

farmchoice wrote: »

in fairness i have had that bar from irish lifting up for the last 18 months and thre is not a mark on the door frame. now it is not exactly the same as the one in the picture but the method of attachment to the door seems to be the same.

The supporting bar places all the weight on the outside door frame, it will eventualy cause an indent in the frame of the door from the pressure, the heavier you are the quicker this will happen. You cannot say it won't damage all doors, it just hasn't damage your's. I've had the old white one from Irish lifting for about 4 years now.

rubadub

You can get fold away versions of the irish lifting style one too. Probably not as sturdy though.



You can also put pipe insulation or something else on your bars to disperse the load better and so not mark the frame as much. Think along the lines of high heels doing more damage stepping on your foot than a big man in flat shoes.

TheAmateur

Some food for thought here, thanks guys

rubadub wrote: »

The screw holds in place a threaded device inside that the outer ends screw into. It will not stop it rolling by tightening as you found. It just makes it easier to manufacture, if you took it all the way out it might be hard to get back together.

Ah, I did take it out and screw it back in at one stage, I wonder is this why it's not tightening up now. I'll take another look at it when I get home. I could swear it didn't roll when I put it up first, problem is, I put it up lopsided the 1st time so I took it down again.

farmchoice

AntiVirus wrote: »

The supporting bar places all the weight on the outside door frame, it will eventualy cause an indent in the frame of the door from the pressure, the heavier you are the quicker this will happen. You cannot say it won't damage all doors, it just hasn't damage your's. I've had the old white one from Irish lifting for about 4 years now.

fair enough and i have no doubt your right but i was only giving my own personal experience.

Hailhail1967

I had no gym for a few months and was using a mates shed, I picked up one of those lidl ones, it was the same brand but came with resistance bands, think it was €15 or there about.

I was lucky not to get a very serious injury from it. In fairness it was probably not the products fault but my own stupidity but I would still urge real caution.

I had the bar on the beams of the roof, it was super tight, it cut way into the beam, and I had it screwed in also, the bar was constantly turning on me so I was also constantly tightening it. One day I was struggling through my workout and just while trying to get the last pull up the bar pulled away from the beam and I flew backwards, smacked my back and my head off the ground, I was lucky enough my head did not catch the barbell which was on squat stands just behind me.

The bar was not bent, the bar had popped out of the end pieces, essentially nothing was broken or bent at all, although the bar had at this stage gone maybe 1/2 inch into the beam., so there was minor damage to the beam but not failure of the timber structure or anything like that.

Now like I said I didn't blame the bar to be honest, although if I got hurt my opinion may have been different. The beams were obviously not ideal structure to start with and the bar may have been turning while I was on it for a workout.

I would be very wary of these types of bars, the force you put on them during repeated pull ups can be far greater than simply holding your 80kg or whatever you weigh, or even the force on a very strict pull up. When you get tired you tend to have a serious amount of pulling/pushing/swinging in your pull ups.

Just my experience. If I was looking for something similiar again, I would just get a wall mounted one and put it outside if I had too.

rubadub

TheAmateur wrote: »

I could swear it didn't roll when I put it up first, problem is, I put it up lopsided the 1st time so I took it down again.

The lobsidedness could cause friction which may have held it. Like if you manage to put a bolt into a screw tilted a bit it will be a bitch to get in or out.

If you do not want duct tape on the outside you could try (at your own risk!) systematically damaging/deforming the threads on the bar screwing in. Some of the chin up bars will let you twist out the bar fully, you will see threads on most. A easy way to "deform" them is to put some masking tape or electrical tape on the threads. A thin layer so it can screw back in but be tighter & harder to turn, like how plumbers tape wrapped on threads gives more resistance. If you damage the threads it can also cause more interference and therefore resistance to turning. If you squeeze them in a bench vice you can get slow controlled deformation, rather than hitting with a hammer. Of course overdoing it could weaken the bar so tape might be handier. It might only be needed on the last few bits of thread, the last to go in.

Hailhail1967 wrote: »

The bar was not bent, the bar had popped out of the end pieces, essentially nothing was broken or bent at all,

Not sure if its the case here, but there is a width limit stated on most of these bars. If you go too far out the bar simply unscrews out of the internal threaded section. If you are close to the limit it might appear to be OK, but might only be twisted into 1 or 2 threads, and so easily come apart when a load is put on it.

TheAmateur

rubadub wrote: »

The lobsidedness could cause friction which may have held it. Like if you manage to put a bolt into a screw tilted a bit it will be a bitch to get in or out.

If you do not want duct tape on the outside you could try (at your own risk!) systematically damaging/deforming the threads on the bar screwing in. Some of the chin up bars will let you twist out the bar fully, you will see threads on most. A easy way to "deform" them is to put some masking tape or electrical tape on the threads.

That's a very good point, the only time I remember it not rolling is when it was lopsided. I might try the tape method, thanks.

AntiVirus

farmchoice wrote: »

fair enough and i have no doubt your right but i was only giving my own personal experience.

Blathnait wrote: »

in fairness i have had that bar from irish lifting up for the last 18 months and thre is not a mark on the door frame.

The foam padding will protect the door frame but given enough time the padding will fail on any chin up bar. I'll pop up a few pictures later, just so you can see what I mean.

As I said earlier I've had mine up for about 4 years and I got mine from Irish Lifting too. It's one of the best chin up bars around, solid as a rock and I'm still very happy with it

AntiVirus

Here's the pictures

rubadub

You can see that doorway has ridges sticking out, so is increasing the pressure on the wood on the ridges. If it was a flat frame you would see less damage.

Rossin

Thats a neat kit, is that the same as the one thats linked from irishlifting?

TheAmateur

Sorry to necro this, but I bit the bullet and ordered the chin up bar from irish lifting last Wednesday. It looks way better. Thing is, irish lifting have debited my account, but my order's status is just "pending" and I've received no further communication from them. Afaik the bar's in stock. Can anyone who's ordered one of these bars (or even dealt with irish lifting in general) tell me if this is unusual?

AntiVirus

TheAmateur wrote: »

Sorry to necro this, but I bit the bullet and ordered the chin up bar from irish lifting last Wednesday. It looks way better. Thing is, irish lifting have debited my account, but my order's status is just "pending" and I've received no further communication from them. Afaik the bar's in stock. Can anyone who's ordered one of these bars (or even dealt with irish lifting in general) tell me if this is unusual?

Oddly enough I think I had the same problem years ago when I got mine :-D

I think he was away on holiday or of in china?? lol best send an email.

Its worth the wait, I think it will last for ever :-)

TheAmateur

AntiVirus wrote: »

Oddly enough I think I had the same problem years ago when I got mine :-D

I think he was away on holiday or of in china?? lol best send an email.

Its worth the wait, I think it will last for ever :-)

Ok, so should I email admin.at.irish-lifting.com ? Or do you mean contact the guy who runs it personally (think he has an acct here)?

Hanley

TheAmateur wrote: »

Ok, so should I email admin.at.irish-lifting.com ? Or do you mean contact the guy who runs it personally (think he has an acct here)?

Do you own a telephone?

TheAmateur

Hanley wrote: »

Do you own a telephone?

Good point, I might as well just ring em.

Hanley

TheAmateur wrote: »

Good point, I might as well just ring em.

I wouldn't in a million years deal with them on line, but wouldn't for a moment hesitate to deal with them by phone.

Emails a shocking form of comms. So easy to get lost in the mix!!

TheNap

I cant help but think that the doorframe will fall down on me after i do my 1st pull up

TheAmateur

Got the bar today, unfortunately there seems to be a problem with it. From what I can tell, either the U-shaped bar on the left is a bit less bent than the right one, or the screw holes on both aren't lining up. The effect is that when I place the padded bar against the frame, only the right side touches the door. Pulling down on the bar does push the left side into the door, but then the "DoorMatic" pad on the other side of the door actually slides out over the frame, which of course is dangerous. I've taken some pictures of it, hopefully they help explain what's going on:

Here's the bar with the back plate placed naturally on the frame. You can see that only the right side of the padded bar only touches the wall:


Here's what happens when you pull down on the bar. The left side actually slides out over the frame and the resulting bar is both lopsided and dangerous:


Here's me demonstrating the gap now between the left side of the plate and the wall:


Was/is anyone else's bar like this? Is there a fix I can try or am I better off getting right back in touch with Irish Lifting?

drdeadlift

I find by placing my weight on the bar even tho it isn't perfectly straight after assembly seems to fix it into position after a few chins.

Rossin

i got mine, great piece of kit in fairness

TheAmateur

drdeadlift wrote: »

I find by placing my weight on the bar even tho it isn't perfectly straight after assembly seems to fix it into position after a few chins.

Tried that again just there, but I find I have to literally hold the back plate to the door while I slowly apply my weight on the other side, and even then, the bar is lopsided as a result. If I let go then, the plate slides out again. This makes the bar kinda dangerous tbh.

It really just seems like the U-bar on the left is not warped enough, or the one on the right is too warped. So I might ring the place on Monday and see if they'll give me a different U-bar to try.
Reckon that's the best course of action?

Rossin wrote: »

i got mine, great piece of kit in fairness

I know! Other than this problem I'd be delighted with the bar, it's so much better than my old one in every other way. But I just can't use it like this.

discus

Going by the reviews of Irishlifting, it's a badly run company. I reckon we should have a thread for dodgy online websites at this stage!

AntiVirus

TheAmateur wrote: »

.

It really just seems like the U-bar on the left is not warped enough, or the one on the right is too warped. So I might ring the place on Monday and see if they'll give me a different U-bar to try.
Reckon that's the best course of action?

Yes, you've got a defective pull up bar. I've had a few different types and never had that problem, even the cheap ones from Argos have both fitted perfectly.