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The GoFit Chin Up Bar is one of the best examples of a straight doorway pull up bar, with padded grips to increase comfort and reduce fatigue.
Its lightweight and portable design means it can be placed in any standard width doorway, from 28″ to 36″ in width. Mounting brackets help ensure a safe home workout, with a weight capacity of 300 lbs.
But how does the GoFit Chin Up Bar compare to other doorway pull up bars, like the GoFit Elevated design?
In this review, we’ll walk you through the design features and installation process, to help you decide if this is the best pull up bar for your own home workouts.
Design Features
The GoFit Chin Up Bar features padding to assist your grip and protect your hands during pull ups. It’s also chrome plated to improve the aesthetic appeal and maintain a lightweight design.
Unfortunately, the foam grips don’t run the full length of the bar, but they can be moved. If you’re looking for a bar with nearly full-length padded grips, we recommend the Maximiza from Garren Fitness.
For safety, GoFit supply you with two sets of mounting hardware. Although this requires you to screw the plates into your door frame, it’s worth the added peace of mind.
Another important design feature is that the mounting kit brackets and bar ends are squared, instead of rounded. This means there’s no risk of the bar rotating in your grip during the exercise.
Extending from one end, the GoFit Chin Up Bar is suitable for door widths from 24-36”.
With some careful positioning, you can often fit the brackets and still close the door you intend to use it on. When you finish your workout, you can quickly loosen the bar and put it to one side if needed.
GoFit Chin Up Bar – Product Summary
- Excellent fitness tool for total body workouts at home
- Adjusts to fit most standard width (28″ to 36″) interior door frames
- Perfect for chin-ups, or as a foot anchor for sit-ups and crunches
- Includes: One Chin Up Bar and Mounting Hardware
- Mounting hardware: 4 silver weight bearing brackets
- 300 lb weight capacity
- 2 for mounting high in your door, and 2 for mounting the bar low, for doing push-ups and sit ups
Assembly and Installation
There’s no need for any assembly, but the installation can be more time consuming than with doorway pull up bars.
Once you’ve found a suitable doorway, you’ll need to mark where you want the mounting kit to be fixed on each side of the frame. Making sure each side is at the same level can be time consuming, but creates a more enjoyable workout experience.
Using a cordless drill and small diameter bit, you can mark pilot holes for where you want the screws to go. Hold the mounting plate up and secure with the screws provided.
After performing these steps for each side of the frame, you can slide the bar into position and secure it in place using the locking tabs. These are designed to prevent the bar being pushed out of place due to upward pressure.
Now you’re ready to begin your workout.
A few customers found they were limited with the number of screws they could use in the mounting kits, due to the locking tabs. With the tabs they could use 3 screws. Without the tabs, they secured the kit with 4 screws.
Exercise Options
One of the advantages of straight pull up bars is they require very little space. There’s also no requirement for the width of the door moulding.
Unfortunately, they don’t offer as many exercise options as doorway pull up bars, due to having fewer grip positions.
The GoFit Chin Up Bar is supplied with two sets of mounting kits: one for the top of the frame, and one for closer to the base. The low position can be used as an anchor point for your feet during sit ups and crunches, while the high position is perfect for pull ups, chin ups, and as an anchor point for suspension trainers, like the TRX.
You can perform hanging leg raises, but if you want to keep your arms straight during the exercise, you’ll either need to bend your knees, or have a very tall doorway.
The GoFit Chin Up Bar is a compact and lightweight piece of workout equipment that effectively works your shoulder, back, tricep, chest, and shoulder muscles. An ab workout is also possible with crunches or sit ups.
But if your strength level means you’re already performing weighted pull ups, buy a ceiling mounted pull up bar. Likewise, if you need a wider range of exercise options, choose a leverage doorway pull up bar, like the ProSource Multi-Grip.
What do the GoFit Chin Up Bar reviews say?
An important part of any pull up bar review is to look at the feedback from other people who have bought and used the bar in their home workouts.
How easy was it to fit? Did they have a good experience with customer service? Was the bar strong enough, and were the grips comfortable to hold?
But reading through hundreds or even thousands of reviews can be time consuming. That’s why we did the leg work for you, and created a summary of the pros and cons for the GoFit Chin Up Bar, based on direct customer feedback.
Pros:
- Brackets are well designed, with 5 support screw holes helping to keep the bar secure
- Easy installation, which isn’t reliant on the thickness of your door moulding
- More secure than straight pull up bars that rely on tension alone
- Bar itself is easily removed, so you can switch between mounting kits positioned at different heights
- Requires very few tools to install, just a tape measure and drill or screwdriver
- Price remains competitive with other bestselling straight pull up bars, like the Maximiza from Garren Fitness
- Quickly expands to fit a range of doorway widths
- Foam grips can be repositioned to suit different grips
- Sturdy and versatile enough to be used for kids gymnastics, chin ups, pull ups, and as an anchor for sit ups
- Can be used to stretch your back muscles as an alternative to inversion therapy, if you don’t want to increase your intra ocular pressure
Cons:
- Mixed feedback on the grips. Some customers found they rotate relatively freely, as they’re only attached with velcro
- Requires mounting brackets, which have to be screwed into each side of your door frame
- No neutral grip position, and the width of wide grip pull ups is much more limited than with a leverage doorway pull up bar
- No complaints about the quality of screws, but some customers decided to switch them out for longer steel versions, such as 3″ drywall screws
GoFit Chin Up Bar Review Summary
Overall Review Rating
4 / 5
So, is the GoFit Chin Up Bar worth buying?
Our personal preference would never be for a straight doorway pull up bar. We just don’t feel there’s a big enough advantage over the designs that leverage off the door.
In terms of value for money, you can often find the Iron Gym Total Upper Body Workout Bar costs less than $20. That makes it more affordable than the GoFit Chin Up Bar, with more grip positions and no need for permanent fixings.
However, we admit there is a time and place for the GoFit bar. It’s more compact and lightweight than the leverage pull up bars, and can extend to fit wider doorways (28" to 36" in this case).
If your door frame is wider than 32 inches (but doesn’t exceed 36 inches), or your door moulding is more than 3.5 inches wide, and you don’t need the neutral grip position, we would recommend the GoFit Chin Up Bar.
Weight capacity: 300 lbs
USA Home Gym gives in-depth insights into gym equipment, supplements, and fitness training methods. The motivation behind USA Home Gym is to provide you with information that goes beyond what you can find in any user manual, customer review, or other online review sites.
We go to great lengths to ensure that our reviews are completely comprehensive, usually covering everything from the design features to the warranty coverage and exercise options. This is all to help guide you towards the home gym equipment that’s best suited to your goals and budget, whilst also being the highest quality option in your chosen price range.
