I’ve scrubbed my gym membership to concentrate on yoga and riding – and I’m now ready to add in some minimalist bodyweight sort of exercises. It strikes me that having some means for doing pull ups, dips and so on would be fabulous.

I have some space (not loads, but probably enough) in the flat for this. For all sorts of dull reasons I can’t/won’t come at anything wall mounted or that clips onto a door frame.

Without spending all the money, do I have any options? What have you got?

Do you have a loft hatch? Perfect for pull ups, use two chairs for dips.

Sadly no to the loft hatch…

£60?

This..

Not great but you could buy some resistance bands then and do pull up alternatives. If you have a door that closes you can recreate something similar to pull ups with bands but it will never be as good as real pullups.

£60?

This..

That looks pretty good to be fair…

I use Stall bars, but they need to be wall mounted…

[url=https://flic.kr/p/22Z9LEB]Stall bars[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

Cheers 5th – bizarrely hadn’t thought of ebay. That’s the sort of thing. Any experience of it?

Is there an outdoor gym near you?
tgogc have the best ones;) have a look at the find a gym page

I’ve got an identical one to the eBay link and it’s pretty decent.

Need to make sure it’s on a level surface or it will wobble a bit, particularly when doing dips. Best to put it on some rubber or foam matting.

Think I paid about £50 for it a couple of years ago and for that sort of money got nothing to complain about.

Anywhere you can hang a pair of Olympic rings? I’ve got a set for when I can’t make ot to the gym. More challenging at first, particularly for dips, bit like dumbbells v’s barbells for pressing

Cheap too

Cheers 5th – bizarrely hadn’t thought of ebay. That’s the sort of thing. Any experience of it?

Not that one in particular. I’ve used something similar for the last 25 years though…

Have a look at similar options. I’m sure that one would do but you can get more substantial ones for a bit more.

TRX or similar? You can do loads with them and they have the advantage of being eminently stowable, plus you can take them with you on trips etc. Genuine TRX pretty expensive, but plenty of look-a-likes out there.

Olympic Rings are great. I admittedly don’t use mine very often, but really glad I’ve got them for when I do. Just need somewhere convenient to attach them, which isn’t always possible.
Failing that, find a site refurbishment and pull a load of wood out the skip and go DIY on a dips/inverted row stand.

Olympic rings here £30 and you won’t get better bang for buck, rings are also kinder on the joints, muscle ups on bars destroys my elbows no problems on the rings.

I’ve got the Domyos one from decathlon. It’s pretty decent.