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Product Review

I was contacted by Jeff Gotts of Delta Fitness regarding a line of pullup bars he was releasing. He graciously sent me one of his pull-up bars to test and review. Below is the run-down of the product and my thoughts.

First, shipping was lightning fast. I feel bad that it took so long to mount the bar and test it, because Jeff got it to me in no time at all!

As you can see, the bar consists of two metal brackets that can be placed anywhere along the metal bar. We have ours secured into a masonry wall (all necessary masonry anchors came included). You can adjust the space between the brackets to fit a studded wall if need be.

Sloppy drilling on one set of holes made us re-drill, but the set-up wasn’t too difficult. After the masonry anchors were placed, we knew the bar wasn’t going anywhere. Nice and solid.

The bar itself is four feet long with a 1 1/4″ diameter and as I mentioned, the brackets can be placed anywhere along the bar. Too far though, and the bar will bend slightly. The distance shown above produces a very, very slight bend when someone jumps up on it, but nothing that concerned me.

The brackets shown place the bar about 12.5 inches from the wall, although looking at the site it seems that the standard distance has since been increased to 16 inches. 12.5 inches was decent for my purposes, so 16 inches can only be better.

Onto the testing…

The bar feels real good in the hands, as there is a natural amount of uniform roughness to it. This isn’t a slick, shiny bar where your hands slip off. Delta Fitness offers additional grips for the bar, but I wouldn’t see them as an absolute necessity.

First skill – the muscle-up. Possible? Definitely. Felt great in the hands during the skill, with no perceivable bouncing of the bar. I was a bit close to the wall with the 12.5 inches, and the toes of my sneakers brushed, but it wasn’t too bad.

Next, the one arm chin-up. Now if you’ve seen any picture of me doing this skill, you know that I bring my legs up to damn near an L-seat, due to muscular contraction of the abdominals. How did it feel on the Delta Fitness bar? Again, not bad. My knees were brushing up along the wall, but not enough to feel that it was affecting the skill.

Regular pull-ups and chin-ups felt great. The brackets are spaced far enough apart to accommodate even the tallest guy (of whom I am not).

I have not worked weighted chins on the bar as of yet, but I foresee no problem. The bar and brackets can hold an apparent 1500 pounds (680 kg), so unless I increase my personal best by about 1400 pounds (635 kg), then the bar should hold just fine! Several heavier (200+ lbs, 90+ kg) guys have used the bar at the gym with absolutely no problem, and as I mentioned with the muscle-up, there was no bouncing with any hard pulling.

 

Final verdict? I like it. This is a solid bar that’s well made. Now it costs more than the doorway pull-up bar you could buy at a local sporting goods store, but the difference in quality is obvious.

Downsides? The distance to the wall was a bit close, but as I said, this has been increased. Any farther away from the wall and you’d need much bigger and more expensive mounting equipment. Mounting onto a masonry wall requires a masonry drill bit, which is another thing to pick up, but this is a minor complaint.

All and all, this bar looks like it can stand up to the use and abuse it’s going to take at a commercial gym. In the home gym I’d trust this bar for weighted chin-ups (something that can’t be said of the doorway models). So head on over to Delta Fitness, check out the bar, and get pulling!!!


Jan 22, 2007 | Category: Blog | Comments: none

 


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