This gets asked a lot in the Xorbars inbox. Choosing the best outdoor gym for your garden can be somewhat tricky, so we have developed this guide to help you.
To start with, our first question will be about the usage. Are children and adults using the gym? Or only adults? We know that children LOVE monkey bars so this is always a firm favourite to recommend but Monkey bars aren’t just for the kids.
Why would adults love Monkey Bars? Well, pull ups…. the staple bodyweight exercise in any workout for both newcomers and advanced. Our Monkey bars provide two different sized holds due to the outer two bars being thicker. They’re also longer in length, with the advantage of being able to vary your grip width and hand positioning for classic chin ups with palms facing, pull ups with palms facing away, or even accommodating a neutral grip pull up with both palms facing each other. The inner rungs are a smaller diameter bars, the varying size also enables you to swap between wide hold and narrow holds for your pull ups. You have the option to work out the chest muscles with the narrower grip or shoulder and back muscles with the wider grip.
There is also the added benefit that of having four posts with a monkey bar which gives extra stability to your gym.
The Monkey Bar is a popular feature in many of our most popular gyms and there is a huge choice from the simple Monkey Bar to our very popular Cube gym, The Warrior or even the Assault Gym…. check them out on the link HERE.
If only adults are exercising…. Other very popular medium sized set ups include The Mini Multi Gym to the Multi Gym Max, these can be adapted into many gym layouts and provide a great work out for all major muscle groups. Parallel bars are often used as a dipping station in commercial gyms but having them at home enables you to complete a massive range of exercises, from simple support holds and dips to more difficult knee/leg raises or even more advanced full L-sit holds.
If space is a fundamental factor when deciding on your garden gym, then our more compact layouts such as Pull Up and Parallel gyms or Pull Up an Dip Bars are an ideal choice from a functional aspect. The choice of bar size is entirely customizable so all bars at the smallest option, could be 3.5ft length giving you a compact but impressive garden gym.
Perfect for beginners starting out with simple static holds to perfect your grip, progressing to negative dips (or as an interim step , use resistance bands to help build strength and stability to support your body weight). For the more advanced, there are also plenty of dip bar exercises for abs to add to your workout too. Knee raises to start, then onto leg raises which are ideal for working out the abs and obliques as well as your hip flexor muscles.