I want to buy gymnastic rings, but I’m not sure where/how to mount them

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spacct

New member
I’m in college right now, and so I’ve been using the college gym, but when I go back home, I want to be able to work on pull-ups/dips in my own home. Bodyweight exercise is one of my favorite things to do and I cannot do a lot of movements yet, but I’m really motivated to learn them and perfect them.

I’ve thought about using a pull-up bar, but my room is just a corner of a basement. I may still get a pull-up bar and put it in the door frame to the basement, but unfortunately, I have pets who aren’t allowed in the basement, and so I can’t leave the door open. So I’ve been considering rings more.

But the thing is, I don’t know where or how I’d mount them. The basement ceiling is just made out of wood with some rafters, there’s nothing I could really throw rings over to use. There aren’t any trees outside to use either. Are there any products I could possibly purchase to use as a mounting tool, or should I stick to pull-up bar?
 
@spacct You can look into one of these free standing parallel bars. I’ve seen them on Amazon for under $100. You can do L-Sit pull-ups, rows, and dips on those - everything else can be done without equipment. Or you can just get a single one and do dips on chairs or something. Rings are better in the sense that you can do the exercises with neutral grip if you choose to, but a straight bar will do just fine and is better than nothing.
 
@spacct I use a free-standing power tower and hang my rings from the pullup bar. It's probably not the safest setup in the world, but I haven't broken my neck yet so who knows.
 
@spacct In the past I have attached eye bolts to a door lintel beam, each secured with four screws, then attached the rings using carabiners. It worked well.
 
@slaw777 I was thinking the same. If screwing/drilling into the rafters is not allowed/possible then large clamps could work.

Just make sure you don’t damage the rafters (put a large, flat piece of wood under your clamp to distribute the force) and make damn sure it’s not coming off. You absolutely don’t want to get hit in the head by a heavy clamp and you also don’t want to fall down if it suddenly comes off during a movement.
 
@slaw777 Sweet, I’ll look into getting some clamps. I’m not sure how trusty or sturdy the rafters are for screwing things in but I’m also not home right now to check lol. Pretty sure it could handle it though, because I’m pretty sure there are some wooden shelves in the basement hanging from the rafters (these shelves hold a lot of weight in materials)
 
@spacct The rafters give many options. I think the easiest is a couple of 3/8" eye bolts or screws into the side of the rafter (far up from the bottom edge, so you have some wood supporting you). You'll need a drill, and two of this and some washers and nuts or this, or any of the 1000 equivalents from your local hardware store.

And, of course, very commonly there's a local park option.
 
@camillallves1 I wish there was a local park option for me. I live in the middle of bumfuck nowhere haha, there’s only a little kiddy park and I dunno if I wanna be walking a mile just to do some calisthenics right next to a 5 year old trying to play. But I will look into using eyebolts as well, they seem like a solid option.
 
@spacct The eye bolts are a solid solution. I used them too for rings. Now I've built a system on our back patio which I prefer because it has a very high (10') and wide (6') bar, and I like to be outside.

I don't know if this is helpful, but I've spent a lot of time doing rings at kiddy parks, and I found it not so bad, but it probably depends on the parks and the people. And, btw, I don't really like kids, or know how to speak to them, etc; just not my thing. My system was that I'd ride my bike to a local kiddy park, and setup the rings on equipment that kids weren't using. I'd also tell parents that I wanted to give the kids priority, so if the kids wanted to use the equipment, I'd be happy to move, but that would rarely happen. The main problem was that the kids were curious, wanted to try the rings (which I never let them do for liability reasons), or their ball would consistently end up at my feet. Stuff like that, but really not much of a problem. Occasionally the parks would be so crowded that there was no free horizontal bar, which for my parks and timing, was about 5% of the time, and if it was 4x higher, I probably wouldn't have stuck with the park approachl. But it's matter of personal preference, and I like to be outdoors when I can.
 
@camillallves1 I agree, being outdoors is fun, I’ve considered doing my workouts out in my backyard but as of now because of recently moving, it’s a huge clutter.

I may try to build up the courage to go to a kiddy park. I get really self conscious out in public, it took me a long time to even build up the courage to go to a public gym. I guess walking there would also help me get my steps in for the day too, which is a plus. But if I can have both an at home option and a public option, that’d be great, because the weather in my state gets nasty sometimes. So I will still look into eyebolts
 
@loakeohna Unironically the best answer. It's very unlikely that the basement has enough overhead clearance to really use the rings properly. That's without even getting into how to mount them.
 
@jun_za Most likely, yeah. Basement has a short ceiling, dunno how tall specifically but definitely not that tall. But the unfortunate thing is, the only tree I have to use, is even shorter and has rather thin branches that swing even from hanging on them with your body weight. The other trees in my yard are definitely over 50ft tall and the branches go upwards with the trunk, so that isn’t a viable option either.
 
@spacct Rings are great but not mandatory, it’s ok if proper ring training doesn’t work out right now.

I would suggest homemade PVC parallettes. They’ll last forever and cost about $20 total, I can give you the exact recipe. With those you can do all types of pike push-ups, super deep push-ups with various grips, shoulderstands, handstand work, L-sits and support work, etc etc. You won’t miss the dips at all. I’ve had both rings and parallettes for a long time and the latter get far more usage.

Meanwhile you can get a pull-up tower (ideally used) to do your pulling. And you can still use the rings on that for rows, face pulls, supports, curls etc. Then if you find a tree or scaffolding (or eventually move) you’ll already have them. But yeah right now, unless your basement has like a 11+ foot ceiling, you’ll be limited with rings.
 
@loakeohna Yeah trees are my go to however it’s can’t be any tree. I live next to a fairly sizeable park with hundreds of trees and only a few have horizontal branches the right height for rings. When it’s rainy and muddy I also go to the basketball cage and put the straps above the doorway.
 
@spacct I used something called "Wall And Ceiling Mount Aerial Rope Brackets". I got a 2 pack from Amazon for 25$. I have it screwed into a stud on the wall. Should work fine on your wood rafters
 
@spacct Cant you ger pull up bar but the fixed ones instead on top of the door if you have some space there. You can hang your rings there and do dios, pull ups, rows, isolation... Push ups probably will be hard on rings because you need space on both sides meaning you would have to leave the door open.

If you dont have space then buy rings with door straps and do bodyweight arc rows (if you can them, they are better for lats than standard inverted rows) face pulls, Y or I raises, tricep extensions, bicep curls.. The issue is that you wouldnt be able to do dips or pull ups, you could try to progress your push ups to handstand or/and planche. Thats a long way but pike push ups and pseudo planche psuh ups are still pretty good
 
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