Nearly all pull-up bars I've seen are fixed, but I have wondered about a bar that is able to rotate/twist.
I'm considering building my own pull-up station so I could design a bar that can spin or be locked in place, are there any benefits to a spinning bar?
A spinning bar will be much harder to grip, this is why you will often see tourist scams that say "Hang 100 seconds for 100$" and will cost 5$ to attempt. Normally hanging for 100 seconds is fairly trivial for someone who is in shape. Rotating bars make it impossible to use false grip or regrip while also making it significantly harder to just hang on.
(Pro tip for those scams: Sometimes they don't specify which grip you can use. If this is the case, use an alternate grip. One underhand and one overhand, it will counter the spin to make it significantly easier.)
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From past experience I would not recommend building a bar that spins unless you are looking to train for the hanging challenges. I ended up building one with a bar that was too thick, which also makes it much harder to grip, and regretted it every time I used it. If you do build one with spin, make it possible for it to swap between spinning and fixed, so it serves the best of both worlds. A simple hole drilled through the bar with a removable pin in it will work just fine.
This is a bit old now but has opened a great question for me. For a short time I had a ceiling panel off and I had put a galvanized tube section accross 2 of the joists. So I had essentially created a "rolling" pull up bar. This was the best pull up/chin up experience I've had. It is an incredible forearm workout and still not too hard to bring your chest to the bar.
So since fixing the ceiling and looking through here for ideas to make one I've suddenly realised the difference between a rolling bar and a spinning bar and it may be a noteable one.
Because the point of rotation on my rolling bar was at the bottom, closer to the wrist and the friction was not deleted completely, maybe this gives for a much better more comfortable midway point? It sounds like the spinning bar is too hard and mainly good for hanging exercises.
Perharps I'm not looking for a spinning bar but perhaps I need to recreate a rolling bar on 2 fairly grippy rails/planks of wood.
I've been training arm wrestling for 2 years and the wide grip pull up on my "rolling bar" was the closest thing I've experienced to a 1 on 1 arm wrestling session.
Let me know if this is any help.
This is not related to a rotating bar, but an interesting read on something more realistic exercise.
Walker et al. published a paper in 2023 in the International Journal of Exercise Science comparing muscle activation and recruitment using EMG during a muscle up between a bar and a ring. It is worth noting that the sample size was small, n= 10. They found that ring muscle up provided appreciable increased in upper trapezius, biceps brachii, forearm flexors. Also muscle activation is higher in the triceps brachii, and biceps brachii.
One part of their hypothesis - ring muscle up would have larger muscle activation in the serratus anterior, lower trapezius, and latissimus dorsi - not supported by the study.
It is likely that the instability in the ring during muscle up made smaller muscle groups to work and stabilise the movements.
You can read the paper here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10824315/
