Turning my condo into a sick gym, or turning my gym into a terrible condo

I like pull ups. A lot. They may be my favorite exercise, but I'm not the greatest at them. Unfortunately I didn't put enough time into researching how to actually progress on the bar properly so I wasted about a year on the assisted pull up machine. It was really awesome doing 4 sets of 10 reps and removing 10lbs of assistance every other week. That was then. Now? Well I'm better at them, and my knowledge on the subject is much greater. Unfortunately, once I started to progress for real I got hurt. Well I had been hurt but I worsened the condition.

This week of sitting around has allowed me to do a lot of reading. I came across an older article over on The Bodyweight Files (bro hugs for the idea, Justin). It's about towel pull-ups, and supination of the wrists while doing the pulls. Great idea; however, it's the hook in the ceiling that caught my man-eye. I love DIY home equipment. I have a number of great tools. A few not so great. I had to run to Home Depot (pay me for the plug...I'll take future credit) anyway so I decided to grab the hook. It was a whopping $1.18. I paid in pennies. In the self checkout line.

With the powers of a stud detector, common sense, and a drill combined, I was able to screw in this hook with my hands. Don't judge me for that ceiling popcorn. I'm going to bring that 60s classic back.

It took me awhile to decide where to screw in the hook. I was having a bit of trouble locating a stud because of the super cool kid popcorn (couldn't get a solid reading as the stud finder couldn't lay flat) when my brain finally turned on. There has to be a stud where the wall and ceiling meet in my stairwell. I confirmed same with a friend, and began drilling. This location works out perfectly as not only can I do pull ups, but I can use the steps to put my feet up on for rows.

Look at that intense concentration. Look at that coat rack. For the record, that Columbia jacket is one of the best investments I've made. It's not obnoxiously large and has kept me warm in 15-20* weather. Yeah it has gotten that cold in pretentious uptown. The humanity.

ROWS! Sick. I can also turn the other direction on pull ups and do L sit pull ups. I can admittedly only knock off 4 in a row, but once I'm fully healed I'll work on it. I would also like to apologize for my lack of shirt. I'm not trying to be awesome at all, it's just that my a/c is out. It's 108* outside. I probably shouldn't even be wearing pants or briefs but that'd be a terrible gift for my daughter on her birthday. I'm not Woody Allen, and my daughter isn't Asian.

The hook isn't that noticeable at all. As you can see it's right by my front door so it's not exactly in a high attention area.

Remember: we don't need a gym to workout! Be innovative and train when you have free time. It doesn't matter if that time allots to only 5 or 10 minutes. That's plenty of time to get in a circuit of any type.

Off to channel my inner Italian, make lasagna from scratch for my lil girl, get a terrible fade, and hide my insecurities through loud, obnoxious and intense behavior. Jokes.