Stall Bars / Swedish Ladders: 2020 Guide & Reviews

Stall bars (also called wall bars, stall walls, Swedish ladders, and Swedish walls) are pieces of gymnastics equipment featured in many professional and home gyms. They’re a convenient way to work out with only your bodyweight, and are relatively inexpensive compared to other gym equipment.

Variations of stall bars have been around for over 200 years, and their calisthenic appeal is just as popular as ever. These Swedish ladders are great for improving lots of athletic abilities, from strength to flexibility to coordination.

In this guide, you’ll learn about:

• The history of stall bars and Swedish ladders
• Reviews on the top 8 best stall bar sets
• The fitness benefits of stall bars
• Stall bar exercises and workouts

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Stall Bars History: Sprossenwände & Swedish Ladders

There are three people behind the invention of what we call stall bars or wall bars today. Here’s a brief history.

Johann Friedrich GutsMuths (1759-1839), a German educator often called the the “grandfather of gymnastics,” invented an early precursor to the Swedish Ladder in the late 1700s. He built a 20-foot tall wooden frame with bars and ropes and ladders to encourage German boys and young men to be more physically active.

Not long afterward, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778-1852), another German educator called the “father of gymnastics,” became inspired by GutsMuths’ exercise invention. So in order to encourage physical fitness among men in his Prussian homeland, he built an even larger version.

Jahn’s Swedish ladder predecessor was a large wooden structure stationed outdoors. He placed more emphasis on the gymnastics stall bars, developing exercises and workout programs for them. As these stall bars grew more popular, gyms started fastening them directly to walls indoors.

These German Sprossenwände (“wall bars”) grew increasingly popular, but Germany wasn’t the only country behind the spread of stall bars.

Pehr Henrik Ling (1776-1839), a Swedish physical educator, is the man behind the Swedish ladder as we know it. He founded Stockholm’s Royal Gymnastic Central Institute in 1813, and invented several pieces of equipment to populate the institute. Among these was the famed Swedish ladder.

From these humble beginnings in Germany and Sweden, the once-lowly stall bars spread across the globe. From the late 1800s onward, they started appearing in high school and college gyms, eventually making their way to YMCA gyms as well.

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Top 8 Best Stall Bars

To save you time, we’ve done all the research on the specs, features, and reviews of the best stall bars for home and professional use. After analyzing all the options, we selected these 8 stall bars sets worth considering.

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Benefits of Stall Bars

Wall bars can be used to improve strength, flexibility, coordination, and more. From Olympic athletes to amateurs, they’re a great option for fitness training.

Stall Bars Are Versatile

Gymnasts use stall bars to improve flexibility and dexterity, similarly to how ballerinas use a stationary barre for stretches and exercises. In fact, even Olympic gymnasts sometimes use stall bars. By leveraging the bars at different levels, they can more efficiently improve their form.

Yoga practitioners can use stall bars to take their yoga poses to the next level. For example, there are stall bar yoga poses that can’t simply be performed on the ground. These can help to fill strength and mobility gaps. As such, wall bars can be used to build up a greater level of strength and flexibility than otherwise possible with bodyweight alone.

CrossFit athletes can make great use of Swedish ladders as well. In addition to being great for improving isometric strength (like working on your flagpole), stall bars are also a great tool for explosive plyometric and bodyweight exercises often featured in CrossFit workouts. Many wall bars also feature a pull up bar with enough distance to perform muscle ups.

Strength athletes can install stall bars for home use to supplement traditional weight training. For example, by placing your feet at different heights on wall bars, you can ramp up the intensity of push ups. For Swedish ladders with an extended pull up bar, pull ups and muscle ups are another great exercise.

Stall Bars Are Customizable

While stall bars were once little more than a stationary ladder, they’ve since become quite customizable. Many Swedish ladder sets come with various components that can be attached for advanced exercises.

For example, Dani’s fully-loaded stall bars set featured in our reviews comes equipped with gymnastics rings, a trapeze, a rope ladder, a plank, and detachable horizontal struts. These can all be attached and removed for various exercises as needed.

Some athletes will also tie bodyweight training bands to their stall bars to take their workouts to the next level. With the right home stall bar set and complementary equipment, your home gym can give you everything you need.

Stall Bars Are Cost-Effective

While many of these types of exercise can be performed on other equipment as well, Swedish ladders can be a convenient and price-effective alternative. For example, buying Olympic weightlifting equipment can add up to thousands of dollars. On the other hand, performing bodyweight exercises on stall bars for home use will only cost a fraction of that price.

For some people, stall bars can also be more advantageous than a gym membership. On average, a gym membership costs roughly $60 per month. At that price, it only takes a few months for stall bars for home use to end up being cheaper.

That means that if they can replace most of your gym workouts, stall bars can actually save you money.

The Science of Stall Bars

Research has shown that bodyweight exercises and stretches can be a great way to improve your health. Stall bars can help you take these fitness benefits to the next level.

Performing isometric exercises on wall bars can improve you heart health and reduce your risk of heart disease. According to research, isometric exercise can be a great way to reduce blood pressure and improve heart health.¹ Static (Isometric) Exercise and the Heart: Physiological and Clinical Considerations Notably, even modest isometric exercise can help with lowering resting heart rate.²Isometric exercise training lowers resting blood pressure. Do your heart a favor and work on that stall wall flagpole progression!

Improving isometric strength on using stall bars can also lower your risk of injury. Research has shown that there is a strong correlation between isometric strength (the ability to sustain a position, like wall sits) and lowered risk of injury for that body region.³ASSOCIATION OF ISOMETRIC STRENGTH OF HIP AND KNEE MUSCLES WITH INJURY RISK IN HIGH SCHOOL CROSS COUNTRY RUNNERS This varies among muscle groups, but working on overall isometric strength using stall bars can be effective.

Increasing flexibility on stall bars may also lower your risk of injury. Many studies have examined the relationship between flexibility and risk of injury. While many factors come into play, such as preferred type of athletic activity, many body regions have a lower risk of injury the more flexible they are.⁴Risk factors for lower extremity injury: a review of the literature⁵Muscle Flexibility as a Risk Factor for Developing Muscle Injuries in Male Professional Soccer Players: A Prospective Study⁶Hip Adductors’ Strength, Flexibility, and Injury Risk (For some sports, such as hockey, flexibility doesn’t seem to decrease injury risk.)

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Stall Bars Exercises & Workouts

Stall bars can be a great tool for improve strength, flexibility, and coordination. But for those who are new to them, crafting a stall bars workout routine can be a little daunting.

Fear not! Stall bars have been around for a long time, and there are plenty and videos and guides online that can help you build a stall bars workout routine. With a little research and creativity, you can make your own customized stall bar exercises routine in no time!

With all that in mind, here are some great stall bars exercises resources:

75 Calisthenic Stall Bar Movements

This video is an awesome go-to for a whole bunch of different stall bar exercises. In just three and a half minutes, fitness trainer Eric Klauss goes through:

• Yoga positions
• Active and passive stretches
• Strengthening exercises
• Plyometric exercises
• Functional fitness exercises
• Core strengthening exercises

If you want to build your own stall bars workout program, this video is a great toolset.

Flexibility and Mobility

For those wanting to improve flexibility and mobility, this video is a great guide on some creative active and passive stretches. Fitness trainer Eero Westerberg of VAHVA Fitness goes through stall bar exercises for stretching out these muscle groups:

• Shoulders
• Lats and traps
• Upper and low back
• Glutes and hips

Some of these stall bar exercises for flexibility are a little advanced. To avoid injury, make sure not to try anything too far beyond your current athletic level. Work your way up to it!

Isometric Upper Body // Core Strengthening

In this video, the same trainer, Eero Westerberg of VAHVA Fitness, demonstrates several exercises for isometric upper body strength and dynamic core strength, such as:

• Isometric arm and shoulder exercises
• Flagpole progression isometrics
• Flagpole jumps
• Flagpole tucks
• Leg lowering for core strengthening
• Hanging leg raises
• Triceps extensions

These are fantastic stall bar exercises for working on your six pack and improving your back support with core strengthening. And there’s a little something for all fitness levels!

These are only a handful of stall bars exercises. With only a little research, you can make your own customized stall bars workout routines!

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Side Note: Pro vs. DIY Stall Bars

Which is better, buying a professional Swedish ladder or just making some DIY stall bars on your own?

For some people, it can be tough to fork out the cash for a professionally-crafted stall bar set. But making a set of DIY stall bars isn’t as easy as you might think.

For some insight into the process, check out this video of Irish woodworker Tommy Down crafting a set of stall bars from scratch:

As an experienced craftsman, he makes it look pretty simple! But for someone without the equipment, materials, and skills, this would be a much bigger undertaking. And this is an all-wood Swedish ladder without any extra components. If you wanted to use steel or add on some rope swings or gymnastics rings, that would add a lot of time and effort.

In the end, the time and money you would spend trying to make a set of DIY stall bars would likely be much more than if you were to just buy a ready-to-build set. And that’s without even taking safety into account. Stalls bars need to be incredibly sturdy so as not to break under the weight of a fully-grown adult.

For most people, all things considered, making a set of DIY stall bars will take more time and money than simply buying one. With regard to time, money, and safety, it’s best not to risk it, and simply leave the manufacturing to the professionals.

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Summary

Swedish ladders in all their variations are fantastic fitness tools. By equipping your home or gym with a solid set of stall bars, you’re opening up a whole new class of workout options.