Parents Advice for DIY bar at home

[Jeb Jones]

Hello all,

I'm new to this forum - parent of a new budding gymnast (7 years old, just started recently but loves it).

On her wish list is to have a bar at home to practice on. I've browsed around amazon, but our ceilings are not high enough, nor do we have enough space to set up a bar indoors at home, so I was thinking of setting up a bar outside (similar to what you'd find at a playground) - but looking for some advice.

I was thinking of maybe something more versatile than just a standard metal bar that you'd find at a playground - but I'm not sure. It seems it might be nice to have a bar that is closer to the feel of the bar they practice on at the gym (the lower of the two bars on the uneven bars). I wouldn't leave a mat under it all the time, but t figured that on nice days, I could put a gym mat under it for safety.

I'm not sure what material to use for the bar. If it was permanently attached, I'd certainly want something that would withstand the elements, but I was wondering if I could design something that you could easily take the bar out of (maybe securing it with hitch pins), which might allow for a bar that was better for gymnastics but wouldn't need to be weather resistant.

Has anyone done anything similar at their home? I couldn't find anyone selling just a bar by itself, so I'm left wondering what material might be best to use and how to treat it. For a weather resistant bar, I figured either coated steel or stainless steel, but maybe PVC if it would be strong enough. I'm not sure if a regular pvc pipe would be strong enough, but it looks like you could also get a PVC rod. Or maybe wood - but it seems like that would require lots of special care. If anyone has experience making a DIY bar, I'd love to hear from you.

While I have grand ideas, it's pretty likely that in the end I'll end up just keeping it simple (KISS). Any advice appreciated.

Thanks.

-J

 

[Iwannabemargo]

your problem is anchorage - the forces, even a small person can generate are surprising. Personally we have a chin up bar that mine do chins and leg raises on, a floor beam and a mat. No tumbling or bar skills are allowed at home.

 

[bookworm]

My advice for a "DIY bar at home" is if you're thinking of anything other than a chin up bar, don't...keep her gymnastics in the gym, where they have the proper equipment and safety features (pits, coaches etc)...

 

[Deleted member 15064]

your problem is anchorage - the forces, even a small person can generate are surprising. Personally we have a chin up bar that mine do chins and leg raises on, a floor beam and a mat. No tumbling or bar skills are allowed at home.

Exact same three things here @ home. Though the mat doesn't get any use, really. The other two - a lot.

 

[mouey77]

There are turn around bars that would function like a "bar" that you can add on to swingsets. That's what we are planning to do for Christmas. (I have a 6 yr old and almost 4 yr old who are also begging for a bar.). We definitely don't want a bar inside our house either. I don't expect the girls will do tricks beyond chin ups, pullovers, back and front hip circles. Definitely not planning on them doing kips or giants (lol!!). I get the safety issue for sure when you are talking about those kind of skills. At this stage in the game, I don't see the problem. My 6 yr old is just doing the same thing on the "bar" at her school playground.

 

[Deleted member 15064]

J - My husband wanted to do something similar a couple years ago but we soon realized (even without the help of CB!) that even if he could design one that functioned, it wasn't going to be safe or practical. The skills your daughter is doing now will soon advance to the point where you realize that piece of apparatus belongs in the gym.

Pull up bar, though!

 

[MaryA]

Yes, I think if you want to put something outside, your best bet would be a swing set. Anything that encourages her to be outside and active is a good thing... for gymnastics and for her mental well-being (and yours!). When we were at the Y gym, there was a girl there whose dad had built her a bar outside, but I never saw it, so I can't speak to its construction. As others have said, while it's hard for you to imagine your daughter doing anything dangerous right now, if she sticks with it she will be learning skills that would be very unsafe for her to do at home, and she will be sorely tempted to do them if she has a back-yard bar. And even simple skills can be dangerous if the bar isn't secured properly (do you really want to have a gymnastics bar sunk in concrete in your back yard for the rest of eternity?). Like the others, we had a mat, a folding floor beam, and a chin-up bar. The chin up bar is still mounted in a doorway and gets swung on occasionally. The beam is the cats' favorite scratching post. And the mat has gotten passed down to a cousin who is in his first year on team. I know it's very fun when they are just getting started and are so excited about it, and you want to do everything you can to support her. But a back-yard bar is just not a safe idea.

 

[MeetDirector]

Jeb -

You asked for advice, so here it is: Don't do this! Any gymnastics uneven bar work (even on a single bar) belongs in the gym and ONLY in the gym. Your daughter is young and anything done on a jury-rigged bar at home will only lead to injury (at the worst) or bad habits (at the least). Picture this - she is out in your back yard "practicing" bars and decides to try something she has seen an older girl at the gym do, say any circling skill. When she gets halfway around, her hands peel off and down she goes landing on her head or neck. Are you going to be there all the time to catch her? If not, who is going to call 9-1-1?

Leave gym at the gym.

 

[mouey77]

Jeb -

You asked for advice, so here it is: Don't do this! Any gymnastics uneven bar work (even on a single bar) belongs in the gym and ONLY in the gym. Your daughter is young and anything done on a jury-rigged bar at home will only lead to injury (at the worst) or bad habits (at the least). Picture this - she is out in your back yard "practicing" bars and decides to try something she has seen an older girl at the gym do, say any circling skill. When she gets halfway around, her hands peel off and down she goes landing on her head or neck. Are you going to be there all the time to catch her? If not, who is going to call 9-1-1?

Leave gym at the gym.

I truly understand what y'all are saying, but I don't think a bar add-on to a swing set is a big deal. Maybe you guys are specifically referring to the free-standing mini bars. Both of my girls (and plenty, plenty of others who aren't even in gymnastics) swing from and flip around bars on the school playground all the time. I think it's fine. I guess they could get hurt, but they could get hurt doing plenty of other things on the gym set. Lots of broken arms this year and last from the monkey bars. If you are referring to higher level skills like giants and I don't know what all else the skills are called, then yes, absolutely that should stay in the gym. I don't foresee my young kids doing those skills. By the time they are skilled enough to attempt that stuff on their own, then the add on bar we are considering wouldn't work for even attempting that stuff. Too low for one thing.

 

[Deleted member 14190]

I second third and forth the (no gym tricks at home). Nadda, zero, zilch. Just tell her that her coaches said NO.

 

[txgymfan]

Welcome to CB. I see that this is your first post. We encourage you to look around and post. You have hit on a much discussed hot button issue for our families. I am sure that at least 10 more members will either post or think about posting the same thing as stated above.

Most of our members (coaches and parents) seem to agree that for the youngest gymnasts a floor beam, mat and pull up bar are appropriate. As they get older the athletes spend so much time in the gym that they lose much of the desire to play gymnastics at home. If she wants more bar practice take her to open gym if you have it available but don't push. Enjoy the ride as we say on CB "Its a marathon not a sprint".

 

[kandkfunk]

Welcome to CB. I see that this is your first post. We encourage you to look around and post. You have hit on a much discussed hot button issue for our families. I am sure that at least 10 more members will either post or think about posting the same thing as stated above".

Txgymfan, you took the words right out of my mouth.

To the OP, if you do a quick search on Chalkbucket for equipment at home or something similar, you should find lots of information to read through.

 

[Jeb Jones]

Wow! I didn't realize how active this forum was. Thanks for all of the replies.

Before posting, I did try searching for previous threads on this topic (figuring there probably would be some) but my searches were either too specific and turned up nothing matching, or were too broad and turned up so many hits (mostly unrelated) that there was no good way to search through - well, I did scan the titles of the first few pages, but did not find anything applicable. So thanks for all of the replies to a topic that's probably already been discussed before.

Sounds like a fair consensus on keeping any "real" gymnastics moves in the gym. Sounds like a good idea. However, as some have pointed out, the girls already have access to bars on the playground at school and nearby playgrounds. The kids (including non-gymnasts) already flip themselves around on those bars, and while there's always a danger of falling - I think I would not prohibit "stunts" that a non-gymnast would do at the playground. But I agree with you all that any more advanced skills should be done with proper supervision and proper mats at the gym.

We already have a nice swing set at home, which I built myself - it includes a trapeze bar. I guess I will see about either adding a fixed bar to the swing set or putting up a standalone bar, so that my girls can have the same thing available at home that they have at their school playground and emphasize that it's playground equipment not gymnastics equipment.

I'm married to a physicist, so I understand the forces and stresses. I'm pretty sure I can make something that ain't gonna move. I was thinking 6x6 pressure treated sunk down to the frost line in concrete - I have no qualms about the concrete. I tend to over-build

Thanks again for all the replies.

-J

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I wouldn't build one at all. In fact, if you're going to have a bar at home, I would encourage you to specifically put it in a place where there is not enough room to do anything more advanced than a chin-up. Even if you are absolutely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can make the bar solid enough to handle higher-level skills, it's simply not advisable for her to be practicing at home, for several reasons.

I'll expand on the many reasons for this later tonight, but I need to get back to gym.

 

[cbifoja]

So I'm curious......several Weeks ago there was a thread in the MAG forum about a home set of rings. There was none to little of this "leave gym in the gym" talk and even advice on how to proceed.

So what is up with that? Why are rings at home for boys okay, but bars at home girls bad?

 

[mouey77]

Yes, why the difference? I think this sounds a little extreme. I would imagine as a someone pointed out earlier that by the time my child is actually kipping or doing giants that she would be in the gym far more often than 6 hrs/week and won't have interest in a turnaround bar on a swing set. Agreed that the YouTube videos of little girls doing giants on those mini bars are insane. But we are talking about swing set/playground equipment that plenty of kids including non gymnasts play on all the time. If one of them ever attempts a giant on the turnaround bar, we could certainly disassemble it.

 

[profmom]

I don't know. In my kids' gym, the advice is very consistent on both the boys' side and the girls' side: handstands and flexibility are great at home, a chin-up bar and parallettes are good for building strength, and for the boys, they can never do enough mushroom circles, but beyond that, leave the gymnastics in the gym.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Fewer people frequent the MAG section, so there was less response. Had I seen the thread, I would have given the same response there.

Strength and flexibility and maybe some handstand work at home are fine, but beyond that I think it's a very bad idea to have a bar at home for anything beyond that.

Even if we set aside the safety issues (which we shouldn't), it would still be a bad idea to build a bar at home.

Your daughter will want to try skills she's seen other girls doing, but that the coaches may not want her doing yet. Even if she can do the skill safely, this is still a bad idea, because there's a very high chance of her teaching herself the skills with improper technique. And in most cases, it's easier to teach a skill from scratch than it is to reteach a skill learned with poor technique.

 

[happychaos]

Personally, if I was dead-set on having a bar, I would want it indoors where it could be matted ALL the time, and the play could be supervised. Outdoor bars really scare me. Although, I do believe that a simple bar is safer than those trapeze things you said you have. Those trapeze things allow kids to swing so big, usually upside down, and often with their heads close to the ground.

One of DD's teammates has a very nice looking DIY bar in her basement. This girl is the best bar worker on the team. I didn't take a close look at how it was assembled. If I were you I would go with a low beam, and forget the bar.

 

[mouey77]

Maybe it's just my kids, but we have a low beam given to us by a friend. Guess how often that low beam gets used. Pretty much on the first of never. We do have a nice mat that gets played on often though.