The other day I purchased a power-tower, in lieu of a door-frame pull up bar. The reason for this was because all of the door frames on my first floor are not standard-trimmed doors, but archways. This forced me to be a little more creative. Thankfully, for $117.00 I was able to purchase a 5-star rated power-tower which gives me the added benefits of dips, pushup grips, and knee-raises.Getting the box home was an adventure, considering the box is about 6ft long and weighs nearly 100lbs. I had to utilize all my duct-tape and strap the beast into the trunk for the 20ish mile ride home. It made it all in one piece, thank goodness.
Once home, I realized there would be "some assembly required." This made perfect sense because the tower is actually close to 7.5ft tall, but the box was significantly shorter than that. So I opened it up, took out all the parts and found myself knee deep in steel pipes, screws, nuts, washers, and not a tool in sight. Good thing I always keep a set of sockets in my car. They don't tell you this in the instructions, but a 13mm socket + socket wrench, an adjustable wrench, and a screwdriver is very useful for the job at hand. They do, however, tell you that it will require 2 people. Luckily I had my clone handy (the one normally kept locked in my basement).I wasn't able to finish the job before 10:30pm... so I had to wait until today to finish it. Thankfully I have high ceilings in my great room as the tower itself appears to be touching the ceiling of a normal sized room. It took me a little over an hour, perhaps 1hr 15mins, to finally assemble it. I gave it a try and it seems pretty solid. It's more stable front to back than it is side to side, so I'll have to watch my swinging. Overall I hope dropping $100+ on this piece of equipment will keep me motivated and get into great shape. Below, I have a picture of it completely put together.
Are you going to leave that in the great room? What if the clone escapes from the basement and uses it to bulk up and destroy you? Good job assembling it, though you omitted the part where you smacked it into submission =)
ReplyDeleteOh ya, I completely forgot. Perhaps I will do an edit in the future (the pictures are not where I wanted them to be). But ya, I had to do a lot of whack'n to get the screws to go into the tubes. And, yes, that sounds strange...
ReplyDeleteAs for the clone, I doubt he can escape. I have all windows/doors exiting the basement locked and dead-bolted. Plus he's been engineered to be only 1/2 as strong as me and 1/2 as smart. Plus I gave him a lysine kill-code, like Jurassic Park (for those of you unfamiliar, they removed a section of DNA from the Dinosaur's protein synthesis that prevents them from making Lysine invitro, which is an essential protein. The Park people suplimented the dinos in their food.) If I don't feed him specially made lysine-rich meals, he will die. To answer your question, I'm well prepared in the event of an escape.
Too funny about the clone... let us know how you like it cause I'm looking for a pull-up station cause all my doors in my apartment are pocket-doors (the ones that slide into the wall)... so no door frames for me either
ReplyDeleteI just bought a Gold's Gym bench and like the quality so good to know they make a pull-up station too.
Without having a full review on the pullup station (which I hope to do when doing workout-updates get boring)...
ReplyDeleteIt works well for pullups, pushups, knee raises, and dips (if you're under 200lbs). I say that because the dip-station is way out and I can feel it flex a bit at 165ish lbs. I can only imagine a 200lber really putting some torque on it.
ONLY DOWNSIDE: It's very tall, 7.5' In a normal height room, pullups/chinups I'd be nervous getting up and over the bar (you might hit your head on an 8ft ceiling). That being said, if you have a nice high ceiling (see pic) having the ability to stand underneath without bending your legs is a huge bonus!
The handgrips are a nice semi-soft rubber. It seems like it will last. The backrest + arm pads for the knee raise will likely be the first things to deteriorate/rip. But I wouldn't expect that for a long time.
I'd give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.
And the price is unbeatable at walmart ($117)