“This is a great portable pull-up bar. It's sturdy, multifaceted, and the bar diameter is perfect--even for my small hands! I only wish the bar could be moved to different heights for exercises like inverted rows and negatives. Overall, a great purchase. I'm already nearly at my first pull-up!”
“Middle age caught my husband and I by surprise. Years of "We'll start working out soon" and "Let's start lifting weights so we're not achy all the time" have flown by. Our weights rebuke us silently whenever we pass them by.
Our daily lives are consumed by our kids, work, our kids, community, our kids, food shopping, our kids, chores, and our kids. Our hopes and dreams of getting fit and fabulous have faded in the daily grind and are getting fainter with each passing year.
But middle age has ways of reminding a person that one's clock is ticking... My husband has started to develop a hunch and my back likes to painfully remind me that I'm not as young as I once was when I pick up kids who still want to be held.
We did some research on solutions for our back issues. We've chosen to explore "hanging" exercises over painkillers. But what pullup bar to hang from? We've never bought a large piece of exercise equipment before. Amazon had a bunch of models but they seemed very "crisscrossy" and difficult to put together. Bullbar won on the basis of its elegant profile, ease of assembly/disassembly, the review claims of excellent stability, and the fact that our tiny house simply cannot house an enormous piece of equipment. (Bullbar can be "walked through" as opposed to the versions that need to be walked around.)
Bullbar came ... and was immediately commandeered by the 4 small male terrorists who hold us hostage. Within seconds of its setup in our home, they got to work - shimmying up the sides (using the dip bars for purchase), hanging off of it (multiple kids at once!), hanging off of each other when one was hanging from the bar, swinging like trapeze artists, trying to dismantle it, and pretty much doing all of the things that IT WAS NEVER MEANT FOR.
In the many epic battles that our army has waged against Bullbar, the Bullbar has won every time. It stands firm and strong, sometimes swaying a little when being used as a trapeze launching pad (when they try to see how far they can launch themselves after swinging), sometimes missing its dip bars (the only part of Bullbar they've managed to dislodge), and repeatedly scoffing at their attempts to bring it down.
Bullbar is much harder to ignore than the weights that we've hidden in the closet. It's always RIGHT THERE, judging us for not using it the way it was meant to be used. "Hanging only takes a few seconds, losers," and unable to face the constant shaming glare of Bullbar, my husband and I have started hanging for a few seconds at a time, several times each day, removing multiple kids before we hang. FFS they're on it ALL THE TIME.
My husband can now hang for 45 seconds, and I can hang for 52. It may not seem like much to you, Buff Gym People, but this an insane amount of progress for us. Hope has been rekindled in Gondor and our kids have found an excellent non-screen way of tiring themselves out which is a terrific added benefit. (The kids in my lap, watching me write this review, would like you to know that they can hang for over a minute each.)
I fully expect a disclaimer to be attached to this review stating something like "DO NOT USE THE BULLBAR LIKE THESE CRAZY PEOPLE" but I know that all of our Pudgy Brethren With Kids know what we're trying to say. If it's sturdy enough for 4 boys' wild antics and 2 Pudgy People's squishy bodies, then this is the model to choose.”
