Our local council has one set of outdoor exercise equipment for the public to use. There is only one in the region. It has some of those inclined benches and things that no one really knows how to use, and some of those little fitness steps that people pretend to use, and a few other pointless things that are mostly for show.
There were no dip bars, and no monkey bars (yes adults should use monkey bars). The one good part of this exercise equipment was a chin up bar. Strangely enough, the chin up bar was likely the least expensive piece of equipment there. I had used that chin up bar a few times, I like it.
There are more public chin up bars about an hour drive from here in a different council, I haven't been to them yet. One day I plan to take my kids to those, but don't want to drive an hour each way just for that so have been putting it off until we go out there for something else. I don't know why chin up bars are so uncommon, and why parks have phased out monkey bars.
No one really uses chin up bars in this country. I haven't seen anyone else use the local chin up bar. I have a feeling that I may have done more chin ups on that bar than anyone else, and I had not been there many times. I have monkey bars in my yard that I can use for chin ups and pull ups and other strength building exercises, but there are a few exercises that you can't do on monkey bars and really need a chin up bar to be able to do them.
There seems to be an irony in Australia where people are not strong enough to use chin up bars, so councils do not install them. As chin up bars are not in parks, the local populace are not able to train and get strong enough to use them. If we had more of these things, people would use them more, and if people used them more then councils would install more of them - which came first the chicken or the egg?
Some countries overseas (usually ex-Soviet countries) have public chin up bars, monkey bars, parallel bars, and other simple calisthenic equipment on almost every block. These things are very common. The things average people do on them is nothing less than remarkable! If you have time take a look at this youtube video and it will give you an idea of what I am talking about.
Back to my story, a while ago most of the state was flooding. The park is near a river and went under flood water.
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| The only public chin up bar in the region after the flood |
My son was concerned that the chin up bar would have been damaged in the floods. When the water receded I took the kids to see how the only local chin up bar fared.
As you can see, it did not do well. Everything was destroyed, and council roped off the area for safety purposes.
Sadly, I can't imagine council repairing the local chin up bars any time soon.
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