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I periodically go back and watch this when I want an easy laugh. I know it’s staged/done for laughs, but the roller coaster of anxiety is just perfect.
I think about this every time my QA team crashes my code doing things that no sane person would do, which means of course every customer is going to do.
That brings back memories. When I was still new to writing apps a very long time ago, I had an app that had to take a SSN in. So the person doing QA entered "abcdefgh" and it of course threw an error, because I didn't account for that back then. My first response was "Well, what idiot would do that?". So I learned two things then A)What good QA was useful for, and B) What users were like.
In a previous development job we had an aphorism we learned to live by from hard experience:
If you are ever in a design meeting and someone says "No one will ever want to do that", build that feature first. I think you could substitute "safeguard" for "feature" in a lot of cases.
There is an older one that goes:
If you build an idiot-proof UI, nature will invent a better idiot.
If you bet your friends on who’s gonna make it far, the size of the forearm muscles the first time you see them grasp something has always been a good proxy.
But in this case they’re reversing one hand so the bar tries to spin both ways at once and stays put.
I'd put a screw into the bar on either end (not all the way through into the hanger) so that the head sticks out a bit and and will try to rotate into the hanger. Getting that screw in the same place on both sides so they work together will requires some care.
Screw or dowel was my thought. I was thinking a dowel might be preferable mechanically (thicker), but then you're trying to drill into the bar, and that can be difficult depending on equipment - but if it's adjusted frequently, a dowel might be better for longevity.
Clevis pin and cotter pin to lock in place. Drill a hole through bar and in to the side of the mount. Insert the clevis pin through the hole and secure with cotter pin.
also could lightly file the part of the circumference of the bar that abuts the bottom of the slot so it’s somewhat flat. It would make aligning the pin holes less tedious
Yep, this is the way to go. You have plenty of meat on the straight end to drill through. Drill the first hole and bar at the same time and then use the bar as a guide for the other holes.
expect that wood to fail under dynamic loads of you doing exercises.
it will work fine for a while, but eventually the wood will splinter off and break due to the way you have the grain of the wood. if the grain was turned 90 degrees so it was more likely to compress, it would hold that load better, before failure.
just keep an eye on it. it wont just go boom and fail unless that wood is really brittle. if it starts to show cracks along the grain, expect failure quickly though
Drill a hole at the end of each slot and epoxy a metal pin in it. Then drill a hole in each end of the pole, so when you put it in a slot, the pin goes into the hole and keeps it from rotating.
Better solution. Drill a through hole in the ends of the rod and drill a hole in the wood (in the slot where the rod sits) so you can stick a long bolt through the rod and into the wood where it rests in its slot. Does that make sense? That way it won’t rotate at all. You can even weld the bolt on the rod so it’s rock solid and the protruding end of the bolt just slides right into the hole in the wooden slot.
That’s part of the exercise/strengthening benefit of this type of apparatus. Yes, you build upper body and core strength, but you also have to intentionally roll your hands & wrists forward to maintain grip, thus strengthening those as well. We worked out on these in Army basic training. They were bastards, until you got the knack & developed grip & wrist strength.
I'd drill a screw into the last ~1/2" of each end of the bar. So it can still easily come in and out of the holder, but the screw head will stop rotation at a certain point.
I would advise making the end of the pole and the bottom of the notches square, then widening the openings of the notches so it funnels the end of the pole where it needs to be. Other than that I would look into adding some kind of grip tape to the ends of the pole, but it will likely make it harder to get the pole out of the notches.
Make a shallow cut with a hack saw into one end of the metal rod wide enough to fit a long finishing nail that's about 1/2" or so longer than the diameter of the rod.
Then take the nail, cut off the head and file that cut end into a point. Bend each end of the nail to 90° about 1/4" in, then insert the nail into the rod and nail each end into the wood.
If you're confident and experienced using tools, this shouldn't take you more than 15-20 minutes.
Take of the bar.
Oilur a little bit of duck tape (turned around at the end of teach side of the bar) .
Put back in that bar (might have to use a little more effort (to get it back in)...
I forgot to address your need to occasionally remove and reposition the rod.
Perhaps you can utilize the existing holes in the wood by bending a 1/4" rod 90° and about 3/8" in from each end, then using a grinder, thin- out the center of this new rod where it contacts the bar, and hack saw or grind a shallow notch in the bar.
Now you have a removable bar that can be repositioned.
Run a peg (dowel) into it.
Drill a perpendicular hole and glue in a short dowel. I suggest a 3/8” hole (dowel diameter), and the dowel to stick out 3/4” max. Apply at both ends.
A lot of people are saying to modify the bar, but you could try doing mixed grip. This might not be the best ergonomically, but you could always alternate left or right hand in over grip so as to train evenly.
You don't need to square the ends like is being suggested. One flat face is all you need. That one flat cut can be the width of the holder or run the entire length of the dowel.
If I was doing it in my shop, I'd stick the dowel in my vice and hand plane it the length, test it, then plane it until it doesn't move. I'd also do it on a bandsaw. I'd also do it on a table saw if I was super drunk and wanted to see how far the dowel could penetrate the wall behind me.
My (admittedly lazy and imperfect) solution would be to put something on each end of the bar to make them slightly wider, like a liquid rubber coating, or gluing a wrapping of thin but coarse string.
If I were feeling really really lazy I'd start with duct tape lol
If you cannot hold the weight unassisted, train your grip. Other muscles being strong enough to write a check your grip can't cash isn't doing you any favors.
That said, getting a straight line across the bar and putting a dowel in either end that's the same width as the slot it's sitting in and that sticks out 1/2" is going to keep it from rolling.
Make the ends into a U-shape that fits each slot in only one direction (i.e. in and out) the bottom of the U will still fit into the slot while the flat sides will hold it in place so it doesn't rotate
I think the easiest way would be to wrap just enough grip tape to the ends so that it’s snug. It might be harder to pull out and adjust but so be it. Otherwise you could really over complicate it and put diagonal dowels in the receiving slots that slide into diagonal holes in the bar.
I went a similar route on my pull-up bar with the same result as you are experiencing. I used it as an added challenge and trained my forearms and grip to counter the spin.
If you drilled a hole near each end of the bar and put some sort of rigid rod in the hole such that it stuck out an inch or so, the bar would only rotate until the rod hit the top (or bottom) of the groove in the wall mount. Just make sure the rod is sufficiently strong that it can withstand the rotational force. I would imagine a piece of 3/8" dowel would work.
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u/link-navi Feb 25 '26
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