Hanging Gymnastics Rings for Cheap

I never really got weights, I think I just don't have the patience for them and everything about the mechanics of lifting just seems too...rigid for me, I guess? A few years ago I came across a video like this of a woman shooting an arrow with her feet while balancing on traffic cones, and the comments section led me to the Bodyweight Fitness subreddit. Here, I found tons of great resources for making an exercise plan that builds strength while focusing on mobility.

I got pretty far with just a pullup bar for equipment, but most of the really interesting skills use rings. I don't have a lot of options for hanging rings, eventually I settled on placing them over a girder in my basement. I have a somewhat low basement ceiling, so they could only be used at hip height or lower. This meant I could do dips but no ring pull-ups or muscle-ups.

While most the ceilings in my home were too low for hanging rings, my garage ceiling was fairly tall at around 9'. I was intrigued by ceiling-mounted ring hangers made by Rogue Fitness and some other companies, but balked slightly at the price; $65 plus shipping for a hunk of metal seemed a little much. There's a youtube tutorial out there from a guy who created a mount from bar of C channel steel that he drilled holes into. I couldn't find any C channel steel at the nearby hardware stores but found a 2' steel framing strut right as I was about to give up. This was perfect, it was only about $10, the 12 gauge steel could easily support my weight, it already had slots along the top for mounting, and recommended ring spacing is about 50cm so it was just long enough. I also picked up some clevis bolts and lag bolts at the hardware store, these were probably the most expensive parts in the whole project.

I drilled three holes through the side of the strut. The two end holes are about 50cm apart for the rings, the center hole is for a climbing rope should I decide to attach one in the future. The holes are just large enough for the clevis bolts to fit through.

Side view of drilled strut

Ceiling beams are spaced every 16", so this strut can only span 2 beams on its own. Since this needs to support my weight, I decided to cut and place a ~40" 2x4 to span 3 beams, then mount the strut to that 2x4 using another 3 lag bolts and washers. This way, if any single bolt fails, then the whole thing won't immediately crash down onto my head.
Finding the beams in the ceiling took an embarrassingly long amount of time. I spent more than an hour holding a stud finder against the ceiling in confusion, only to realize that I was looking in the wrong spot for the beam orientation I needed. I did, however, learn that stud finders still work reasonably well on popcorn ceilings, though if you have a tough time with it you can put a thin piece of cardboard between the ceiling and the stud finder.

Hanger mounted to the ceiling on 2x4

I gave each lag bolt in the 2x4 a counterbore so they wouldn't interfere with the strut, though I guess I could have just done the counterbore on the center bolt. Or I could have just put the center bolt through both the strut and the 2x4. Oh well, this works all the same.

The rings mount beautifully and more importantly, securely. All for under $30 and about the amount of labor that I would have put into the more expensive hanger.

Materials:

• 1x 40" 2x4
• 1x 2' framing strut
• 6x 3/8" lag bolts
• 6x 3/8" washers
• 2x clevis bolts
• 2x cotter pins

Tools

• Stud finder
• Drill press for drilling holes in steel strut
• 3/8" bit
• Hand drill
• 15/64" bit for lag bolt pilot holes
• Counterbore bit
• 3/8" ratchet