Perfect Fitness Multi-Gym Doorway Pull Up Bar and Portable Gym System

I bought this amazing pull-up bar by Perfect Fitness at the recommendation of a friend who got it at the recommendation of a YouTube user to help him with "frozen shoulder" - and he was raving about it. I've had this 2016 goal of getting stronger especially in the upper body and I've been doing so many things but learning to do pull-ups has been a secret wish so I splurged and got this pull-up bar immediately. I LOVE it! Here are the reasons why: 1. Easy to install: He came over and installed it for me in 10 minutes. All the screws that you would need are included. You just need a small wrench to do the job. I didn't do it on my own because he owed us a favor but I probably could have figured it out. It comes with instructions. 2. Easy on the door frame and wall: This ingenious design is so brilliant that you can (1) take it down by simply pushing up on the bars and sliding it off the door frame. No screw/unscrew, nothing. It comes off so easily you'd be surprised! (2) It does absolutely no harm to the door or wall because you are not screwing it into the wall or doorframe. All the set-up is within the pull-up bar itself. 3. Versatile: You can use the pull-up bar so many ways and each one builds a new set of muscles. There is the wide grip and the narrow grip and the reverse grip and that's just what I know so far. I am still exploring. I've attached my FIRST ever pull-up in a video and am surprised by how strong I already am, but ways to go to get stronger still. 4. Floor exercises: You can see in the manual that comes with it that you can do a number of floor exercises. My friend has done this and finds them even harder than some of the pull-up challenges. I'm waiting to explore those. 5. High quality: While this is my very first pull-up bar, I can tell that the quality is solid and I trust it to hold me up and keep me up :)! Overall, I cannot recommend this Perfect Fitness Multi-Gym Doorway Pull Up Bar highly enough!!!!

*December 2013 update: After 5 months of using this pull-up bar, it's still going strong. Nothing is bent out of shape, everything is like I just bought it. The mods I mention in my original review are still going strong too. Original Review from August 2013: Great product with some excellent enhancements over the leading competitors. Has some flaws but can be easily fixed. Pros: 1) Handles are fully foamed and is comfortable to grip. No gloves required. 2) The dense large foam pads on the sides really distribute the force against your door frame. No marks on the front side yet. 3) Fully adjustable to a variety of door sizes. There were some ignorant buyers giving this product a low review because they didn't read the description on the product before purchasing. This will fit the sizes indicated, but not any bigger than described. 4) As with all pull up bars, there are a variety of grip positions (chin-up, military pull up, wide pull up, neutral pull up, etc.). If you haven't done military pull ups before and aren't able to do so easily, I'd recommend starting with chin-ups and neutral pull ups to build your upper body strength. Cons (but can be fixed with some simple mods): 1) The bolts didn't feel super sturdy and one of them wasn't threaded properly. Being 186 lbs, I confirm that the bolts did hold, but I really didn't feel safe on it. So I went to my local hardware store and bought new steel bolts and nuts. No way this thing is falling apart now. =) 2) Below long gray bar that sits on the top of the door frame there is the metal white frame of the pull up bar. This part of the frame will cause damage to the paint job of your door frame. Here is what I did to fix that problem: After I had the pull up bar appropriately adjusted for the door frame, I took note of exactly which exposed sections of the pull up bar came in contact with the frame. For my door, it was the inch directly below gray bar. So I used dense foam normally used for air conditioner insulation, and wrapped it around that section and secured it with postal tape. Now, there is no fear of further damage. As an added bonus, it make the pull up bar even more secure with the added friction. Summary: All pull up bars that attach to door frames will be inferior to the full sized machines. Either the material, or the design will be flawed. However, this one comes pretty close to perfect, and with the two simple mods I mentioned above, it will serve its purpose very well.

Six weeks in, and this still works great using it 3x/wk. No marks or dents in my doorway trim so far. I like that it's adjustable; took a little longer to put it together but I think it's worth it in the long run. Since the pads don't rotate it's important to adjust it correctly or the pads won't lay flat and you'll dent your door trim. I'm 160 and it doesn't feel unsteady at all, though my pull-ups are very controlled and I don't swing. My doorway is 28" (opening size) with 3 1/2" trim width and it fits perfect; I have another doorway that's 32" (wheelchair width) and the pads only cover 2 1/2" on each side, which probably isn't ideal but could work if you're careful about staying centered. So I think the marketing that it's OK up to 35" doorways is a stretch - that leaves only 1" of pad against the trim, perfectly centered. The hardware seems a little cheap; the nuts look like they could be stripped if over-tightened. The foam and rubber feel pretty sturdy; we'll see how it holds up but for the price, i'd be happy to get a year out of it. I use it in combination with Body-Bands for wide grip/lat work. The Body-Bands do crush the foam in the middle where they loop around, but I guess that's no big deal other than aesthetics. Oh and this sounds stupid, but it goes on the door side without the door - I didn't think of that when shopping and had to choose a different doorway once I got it home!

I had the original Perfect Pull up for years, and it was great. Recently the wide grip started to tear on me. Plus, I was also starting to feel a little extra pressure on my shoulders, so I decided it was time for an upgrade. The Elite Ergonomic version of the Perfect Pull has been great so far! It was easy to assemble and feels sturdier than the original. It fits securely on my door and has not chipped, scratched or damaged the paint. It also has more grip area, compared to the original, so you can try an assortment of grips and be comfortable and feel secure while you workout. The slight angle on the wide grip(compared to the original)really helped alleviate the shoulder pressure I was starting to feel. I use it regularly, about 3xs a week, while doing P90X videos and it has held up great with no issues so far.

I don't always agree with TheWirecutter recommendations, but I believe they've found a gem in this pull-up bar. I bought the Perfect Fitness Pro model at MSRP ($34.99). I've been using it for about two weeks now with no complaints. Although other bars may be cheaper (like the Sport Compact model from this same company) I find that the round foam contact creates a point of high pressure that may end up damaging your doorway molding. On the Pro, I'm more confident that the large surface area contacting the molding will better distribute the pressure and prevent any damage. I'll know for sure once I've used this pullup bar longer. I think the $10 premium over other standard doorway pull-up bars is justified by this one point. I don't have to go wrapping the contacts with rags to try to prevent damage, so it's saved me a bit of hassle. The grips over the padding are useful in letting you adopt a grip wider than the doorway. Useful if you have wide shoulders or something. For me personally, the wide grip is a little too wide for me, and I end up gripping the non padded area for my wide grip (I'm 5'10 with average width shoulders/wingspan). Regardless, it's a nice feature for those who need it. There's a storage area in the back for the Allen keys needed to assemble the pull-up bar. Nice touch, but I'm not sure how often I'll be assembling and disassembling this product. The only nitpick I have is that when the bar isn't hooked into the doorway, there's a little bit of left-to-right wobble if you hold onto the curved pieces and shake. It was a little off-putting, but when hooked on the door it feels sturdy as a rock. No flexing or wobbling when I've been using it for the past two weeks. I'm 5'10 and 150lbs for your reference. Other than that, it really functions like any other doorway pull-up bar. Easy to pop off and stow away somewhere. I recommend this bar if you need a really wide grip or are tired of damaging your molding/having to pad other bars!

I was a little skeptical initially while ordering this, because pull-up bars like this don't usually live up to the expectations, but this one is just worth every penny. Pros: 1. Foam grip which not only provides a good grip on bar, but also acts as a sweat absorbent and does not let callous develop on your palms. 2. Those little flat supports at both ends of bar which comes in contact with door-frame are good enough to keep your door-frame from any marks/dents etc. 3. Also comes with a nifty little check clip to be inserted on door-frame which will not let it come-off accidentally. (You might have seen one of those YouTube fails wherein the bar will come off from the inside of door-frame, that is not going to happen with this one) 4. Can be assembled and disassembled very easily with allen-keys provided. Will fit in your luggage, with longest pipe dimension being around 21 inches. (the long bar in the middle actually comes apart into two 21 inch pieces, this isn't very evident in picture on display here on website) Cons: 1. Cannot be fitted to doors where the wall thickness is more than 6 inches. 2. Metal pipes, although my friend did not have any trouble with customs department, but you might want be double sure while traveling with this in your luggage. I would definitely recommend this to a friend. If you are looking for some home workout options, this is a go and grab product for you.

This just came today, so let me preface this by saying if it doesn't hold up well, I'm going to come back and edit and reduce stars. I bought this because I wanted a second pull up bar for the downstairs, since the gorilla gym one we've had for a couple of years now is upstairs right next to my son's room, and it's not nearly so convenient to remove, and it makes navigating my morning workouts more difficult because of the risk of waking him up and I finally just decided I needed something removable to try for downstairs. For the installation instructions, I think there are a couple tweaks that make this easier to assemble. First, it tells you to line up the left and right assembly bars on the table, and then insert, twist and lock. Actually, if you just try to insert them with the pads flat on the table that way, you can't get the bars to move together because of the way the channel lock is set up. So I found it actually worked much easier to lift the two bars up, with one held flat away from me, the other slightly turned, insert, and then twist closed. Also, on mine at least, left and right sides weren't clearly marked, and it does matter, because of the types of bolts and locking mechanism they use, you need the wider hole to go on the bottom. Also, it tells you in the instructions to attach the connector bar fully with the bolts to the unit, then fit it to your doorframe, then move the bolts if needed. To me, that sounded like a waste of my precious time, especially since they instruct you not to fully tighten the bolts down until after you've fit this thing. So I slid the connector bar on without the bolts, fit it to my door frame, and used that alignment to pick which bolt hole to use. Seemed more efficient to me then putting bolts in and taking them out and fussing with that more then once. I would also note, it's written in small print, but I missed it so you might too... make sure you use both Allen wrenches for tightening these, one holding the back, one moving on the front, or they won't fully tighten. After installing this and the safety clip, I did try all grip points, and noticed that there is a bit more give then I would have liked. I weight 133 pounds fully clothed and with my shoes on, which is how I tested this out. So this is one I'm watching carefully, it may mean nothing, it may be a sign of things to come. The wide grip handle pads also are already marking my moldings. I'm not super fussy about stuff like that, our son has totally cured me of that, but just an FYI.

I bought this because I figured my 5-year-old Iron Gym could use a replacement. Not that I felt unsafe using it, but just for good measure. I purchased and assembled the "Pro" model of this product. I had to adjust the connections a couple times to get the right fit, with the horizontal bars horizontal to fit my wall thickness and molding thickness, which was fine. A combination of bolt hole options did end up working for my frame/wall situation. So I put some weight on it but saw that the right side would slide down the frame but the left side was relatively firm. I looked closer and the part that rests above the molding was not making contact on one side. So when I put weight on it the part would flex in to touch the wall above the molding, while the handle would lower. Take the weight off, and the part above the molding flexes away on one side while the handle raises back up. I double checked all the connections which were good but I noticed that the 4 "members" were not "square" with each other. I pulled it apart to check the J-bars and it turns out one was bent more than the other one, keeping the whole thing from fitting together square/plumb. Certainly this would not distribute the weight evenly across the door frame and likely either the frame or the pull up bar would end up breaking. The side with the smaller-angle J bar would be taking disproportionate load, over and over and the side with the larger-angle J bar would be flopping around, even with the tinfoil (minor exaggeration) "safety clip". The flexing back and forth demonstrably loosens the bolted connections after only a few loading cycles. I am returning this item because my 5-year-old Iron Gym is of better manufactured quality and is more safe and secure. Perfect Fitness: Please implement some kind of QA/QC program. It looks like several users of your product have already injured themselves. I am not taking the risk. Amazon: Please be careful about the products you recommend or send to the top of the list. The product is rated for 300 lbs but many people are reporting failures of the hardware (which is cheap) or the door frames (which is surely caused by the uneven distribution of forces when the thing is not symmetrical due to inconsistent manufacturing as I have described above). Hopefully this review is useful to Amazon, the vendor and prospective customers alike.