Iron Gym Total Upper Body Workout Bar - Extreme Edition

I used to be ripped. Back in college I worked my ass off the first three years so that my senior year I could fart around and do whatever I wanted to do. So for the purposes of scoring chicks I spent HOURS in the gym building mass and kicking ass. Well, the college days are long gone and today I'm about 15 lbs lighter and developing a beer gut. One morning while I was brushing my teeth I caught my wife staring. Thinking I was getting her hot by simply being me I turned on my mack daddy swerve, spit out my toothpaste and asked my wife, "How's about some pre-work porkin'?" To which she replied, "You used to fill out that shirt." Depressed and with feelings hurt, I had to keep myself from telling her that she was fat so instead I stopped by McDonald's before work and ate a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit. After remembering my buddy telling me about the P90X workout I remembered that the local sporting goods store sold some sort of special pullup bar that you can install right on your bedroom door. After seeing how much that bad boy cost I turned to the trusty amazon for guidance and found this little diddy. I ordered it, saved myself $50, and within two days it arrived at my house in a million pieces. Fortunately, I'm a whiz when it comes to putting things together. I think it's because my parents never bought legos for me and my brother and instead gave us a screwdriver and pliers to use on whatever appliance we had in the house, whether or not it was working and whether or not it was still plugged into the wall outlet. Once put together it's pretty solid. I've worked in an office for the past 9 years so while my hands are girly and soft, the grips are pretty comfortable and haven't worn out yet despite using the thing every day for the past three weeks (ok, while I don't use it EVERY day, I use it enough to the point that it seems like it gets used everyday). I've heard of folks complaining that it marks up the doorframe, but I haven't experienced this at all and even if I did I wouldn't care. I don't live in a museum and I figure little marks here and there give your home character. I've gone from only being able to do 3 sets of 5 reps to 3 sets of 10 reps with a lot of difficulty within three weeks. I like that it has different grip placements because depending on which grip you use you can focus on your lats or biceps. I'm glad I got this thing because now I'm getting some tone back into my arms and my dress shirts are starting to get snug around my upper chest again. Just the other night the wife commented that it looks like I'm filling out my shirt again. While it was a nice complement I wish she would have allowed me to do her that night. My goal is to get as ripped as those guys in the "ghetto workout" videos on youtube. My guess is they probably got that ripped in prison, but at least I'm doing something to reach my goal. Maybe if I got that ripped the wife would want to do me all the time.

This is the Iron gym extreme, with the wide grip, purchased ~late feb/early march 2010.I live in a small apartment, needed a good way to start a beginner's workout program, and needed a cheap yet completely reliable way of doing pull-ups. Like the other reviews say, once constructed, it's rock-solid, and does its job.This product will work only if you either have the correct dimensions, or you improvise to make it work.For your reference, my closet door (the empty space width) is 63cm, which converts to 24.75 inches. The end of the trim from end to end measures 70.8cm (27.87cm). The bar rests on the trim, which is ~1.5 inches thick. The width of my door space is far less than the recommended length they give in the product description, but it works fine; it ends up resting in the black padding closer to the vertical curve supports.Now, if you look at the main product picture, you'll see the two horizontal U's on both sides, both of which come to an end "behind" the picture. Some people are concerned that the stubs there will dig into the trim, if the door way is of that length. I would say that's a concern, unless you put on a lot of padding. This "danger zone" would affect doorways between ~71 to ~78 cm wide (uncertainty of maybe 0.5cm). [If someone else has an exact measurement of this, please post it.]THE MAIN QUESTION IS... is your doorway THICK ENOUGH? Mine isn't, and I had to improvise to make it work. My wall thickness is a mere 3 + 7/10 inches wide... basically 3.5 inches. There's half an inch of trim on both sides, making the thickness of the wall where the trim is 4 + 7/10 inches. This is way below their recommendation... and for good reason... if your wall isn't thick enough, the top support bar will dig into your drywall above the top trim.I understood this buying the product, but first tryed it out without padding... and now my wall's dented. I added ~70 cm of padding between the trim and the horizontal bar. This forces the set-up to be upright, instead of sagging. By doing this, the top bar is fully flush against the top trim. This makes the entire system as sturdy as advertised.For padding, I cut up a pair of old jeans in half, wrapped a pant around each of the black paddings, while stuffing an old hand towel into each pant leg.SUMMARY: you can get this to work even if you don't have perfect measurements. Of course, do this at your own risk. I've been doing assisted wide-grip overhand pull-ups... it's a really great pump; my lats and especially biceps are sore. I've also done regular pull-ups periodically to make sure that it can support my full 180 lb weight. Not a problem! Thanks goes to scoobysworkshop.com for their (his) free workout advice.