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If you’re struggling to stay in shape right now, the best pull-up bars will help you meet your daily fitness goals. There are a ton of strength and ab exercises available through this simple bar. Pull-up bars can help you get in a few reps throughout the day, incorporating movement into your everyday life through enhancing things you already do — like walking through doorways.
There are three types of pull-up bars to consider:
- Doorway pull-up bars
- Wall-mounted pull-up bars
- Standing pull-up bar towers
We love doorway pull-up bars because they offer plenty of variety, don’t take up much space and are convenient for quick workouts. You can tack these things up just about anywhere and forget about them throughout your normal day-to-day routine. However, if and when you want to squeeze in a quick workout, your pull-up bar will be there, ready and waiting. That said, wall-mounted and free-standing options may be better if you have a larger home office or are especially dedicated to strength training. And if you’re really trying to drill down on the workout data, don’t forget to grab a smart scale so you can track your progress.
Check out our top picks for easy to install pull-up bars for an at-home fitness regimen. We’ve found 11 of the best pull-up bars to help you crush your strength training goals, and included a few of our favorite pull-up bar workouts to try.
Pro Tip: For a challenge, try putting your new pull-up bar in a door that you pass through often, such as the doorway to your kitchen, and bust out as many pull-ups as you can every time you walk under it.
The Best Pull-Up Bars
1. CEAYUN Pull-Up Bar
BEST OVERALL
This pull-up bar from CEAYUN easily mounts to a door frame and lets you crank out pull-ups at home. The benefit here is the added grip options. In addition to the standard wide-grip pull-up, the second pair of handles allows for hammer grip pull-ups, where your palms face each other. This alternate grip creates a new challenge for your body and works to strengthen different muscles. Like many doorway pull-up bars, this one requires no screws. Simply secure the bar with the back of a door frame and get to work.
Buy: CEAYUN Pull-Up Bar $28.99
2. Yes4All Wall Mount Chin Up Bar
BEST HOME GYM BAR
This underrated chin-up bar will help you stay in shape at home. The steel frame can support up to 500 pounds and comes 30 inches off the wall, which is great for working out with accessories like rings and ab straps. Find the right spot in your home (make sure the wall can also hold up to 500 pounds) and enjoy burning off any excess energy or develop a workout regime meant just for you. With plenty of workouts online, staying in shape indoors has never been easier.
Buy: Yes4All Wall Mount Chin Up Bar $109.99
3. Garren Fitness Maximiza Pull-Up Bar
MOST LOW-PROFILE DESIGN
Sometimes a big, bulky door-hanging pull-up bar is just too much of an eyesore. This pull-up bar from Garren Fitness enlists a sleeker design that won’t be as obvious in the doorway of your bedroom. Using screws, it securely mounts to the inside of a doorway and extends between 26 and 39 inches in width. You can technically still remove the bar between uses if you’d like, but the screwed-in mounts will remain in place unless you uninstall them. Still, this is a simple alternative to the traditional door-mounted pull-up bars.
Buy: Garren Fitness Maximiza Pull-Up Bar $39.98 (orig. $60.00) 33% OFF
4. ProsourceFit Multi-Use Doorway Pull-Up Bar
BEST REVIEWS
If reviews matter to you, check out this doorway pull-up bar from ProsourceFit. It sports a 4.4-star Amazon rating with more than 14,000 different reviews. And for good reason. The ProsourceFit pull-up bar features a multi-functional design, one that mounts in a doorway for pull-ups or rests on the ground for triceps dips and push-up variations. It’s a versatile strength training tool for anyone looking to pack on some muscle at home. And, as we mentioned, it comes with the heavy endorsement of a bunch of other users.
Buy: ProsourceFit Multi-Use Doorway Pull-Up Bar $31.45 (orig. $32.99) 5% OFF
5. Power Tower Workout Pull-Up Dip Station
BEST SPLURGE
If you’ve got the extra money and space in your home for an elevated pull-up bar power tower workout station, this one is worth the purchase. It’s made of high-quality steel and can hold up to 330 pounds. It’s got suction cups on the bottom that adjust and contour to the shape of the floor for maximum stability, and it’s equipped with a backup safety locknut function. The height has nine different levels of adjustment so you can adjust it based on the needs of individual family members, and the backrest has four different adjustable settings as well. This machine can support exercises that workout the entire upper body — from triceps, chest and shoulder muscles alike. It’s easy to use, simple to set up and will help you build strength and tone muscles for years to come.
Buy: Power Tower Workout Pull-Up Dip Station $152.99 (orig. $179.99) 15% OFF
6. Yes4All Wall-Mounted Pull-Up Bar
BEST WALL-MOUNTED
Durability and security matter a ton when you’re looking at the best pull-ups bars. For that reason alone, it often makes sense to look at something held in place by screws. Yes4All cracks our list once again with this wall-mounted pull-up bar, which securely fastens to a wall with screws. Now, anyone that’s mounted a painting or TV knows that just because something’s screwed to the wall, doesn’t mean it’s secure. The bases of this pull-up bar are designed to fit standard wall stud patterns, meaning the screws will lock into your wall’s foundation and provide true security. Of course, this is a more permanent option, so it’s best kept in a room dedicated purely to fitness.
Buy: Yes4All Wall-Mounted Pull-Up $39.99
7. Ultimate Body Press Ceiling Mounted Pull-Up Bar
BEST CEILING-MOUNTED
There are plenty of wall-mounted pull-up bars, but a ceiling-mounted one is rather unique. This option from Ultimate Body Press mounts into the ceiling, and it has multiple grip positions including two parallel bars for a neutral grip and a long central bar if you want a wide grip. All of the grip positions are padded for comfort. The wall mounts are reversible, allowing them to be mounted to either 24-inch or 16-inch rafters.
Buy: Ultimate Body Press Pull-Up Bar $104.99
8. CAP Barbell Power Rack Exercise Stand
SIMPLEST
If you’re looking for a freestanding pull-up bar stand, this option from CAP Barbell has a simple doorframe-shaped design that you can put anywhere. You can use it for pull-ups and chin-ups, or utilize it as a true power rack for squats and bench press. Its simple frame makes it very sturdy — it can support 500 pounds of weight.
Buy: CAP Pull-Up Bar Exercise Stand $150.60
9. Sportsroyals Power Tower Dip Station
STURDIEST CONSTRUCTION
This power tower has a pull-up bar as well as multiple other stations for getting a full-body strength workout easily. It comes with a 14-gauge square steel frame construction that can hold up to 400 pounds easily and has a scratch-resistant coat finish. The H-shaped base creates even more stability and has eight support points which increase the contact area between the machine and the ground. This multifunctional workout station has an ergonomic design, four different heights for the pull-up bar and seven different settings for the adjustable backrest.
Buy: Sportsroyals Power Tower Dip Station $205.99 (orig. $279.99) 26% OFF
10. AmazeFan Pull-Up Bar
MOST ERGONOMIC DESIGN
This AmazeFan pull-up bar has ergonomically-angled grips for a wide grip if one chooses, an exercise form that challenges and increases the muscular size of the latissimus dorsi and protects the wrists at the same time. There are no screws or assembly necessary for installation and it’s built with solid steel construction for maximum strength and stability. It also has a dip eyelet built in where you can hang a punching bag for boxing as well as professional-quality wrist straps you can wear during your workout. Additionally, there are plastic buffer pads that’ll protect your door frame from scuffs and marks.
Buy: AmazeFan Pull-Up Bar $53.99
11. Perfect Fitness Pull-Up Progression Bar
MODULAR DESIGN
This option from Perfect Fitness mounts inside the doorway. Unlike other options that simply span the inner length of the door frame, this bar folds down and out from inside the doorway, giving you more room to work out. You can leave it in the up position to do pull-ups and chin-ups, or fold it down to do rows. The bar has grips that make it comfortable to use.
Buy: Perfect Pull-Up Bar $32.99
The Best Pull-Up Bar Workouts
If you’re committed to a strength training routine and want a simple, versatile tool to help you get there, the pull-up bar will be your best friend. Sure, gyms definitely offer dynamic strength training workouts with tons of expensive weights and gear. But a basic pull-up bar can do wonders for your upper body strength, particularly if you’re just beginning your fitness journey and want to start at a rudimentary level.
The best pull-up bar workouts will utilize different grips, angles and movements to train your upper body. But you can also utilize a pull-up bar to strengthen your core through a number of grueling ab exercises. Read on to see three of our favorite pull-up bar workouts, and make sure you purchase the pull-up bar that fits your specific needs and the exercises you’re hoping to tackle.
1. Pull-Up
You saw this one coming. One of the most fundamental upper body exercises, the pull-up strengthens the muscles of your arms, shoulders and back. It offers a great warm-up for a full arm or back workout, but can prove to be a pretty formidable workout on its own. There are tons of pull-up variations, too, which challenge your body in exciting ways and strengthen different muscles groups. Depending on the grip, you might be enlisting the help of slightly different muscles to lift up your body weight. If you’re just getting started and need a boost, we recommend having a friend hold your legs to offer a bit of support and make the exercise easier. Gyms often have assisted pull-up machines, which allow you to rest your knees on a platform with weighted support. While performing a push-up, resist the urge to jump, swing, or use other momentum to reach the bar. You should rely completely on your upper body strength for this one.
2. Hanging Knee Raise
The great thing about training abs is you can accomplish most exercises on the floor of your home. Just grab a decent yoga mat and get started. But incorporating other tools and exercises further helps to develop your core. Though a pull-up bar might appear uniquely tailored to strengthen your upper body, there are plenty of core exercises to tackle while hanging from a pull-up bar. The hanging knee raise makes particularly effective use of gravity to strengthen your abs. Hang from a pull-up bar with your arms and legs extended. Slowly bend your knees and curl your legs as you lift them toward your chest. Crunch the abs at the top of the motion, then return them to the hanging position. It’s key here to control the movement and not rely on momentum to swing your legs up and down.
3. Dips
While you won’t be able to tackle dips on most of the doorway-mounted pull-up bars, you can certainly perform them on a free-standing power tower. Dips are great for upper body strength and target your chest, shoulders and triceps in particular. We should warn you — if you deal with any shoulder issues, dips won’t do you any favors, and can put an inordinate amount of stress on the shoulder joints, so proceed with caution.
To perform a dip, approach a power tower and grab the parallel handles that kick out from the middle. Raise yourself to the starting position so your arms are fully extended, and your entire body weight is supported by your hands on the bar. Lower yourself until your arms create a 90-degree angle, then push up to the starting position.