Pull-Ups • 9 Min Read

Pull-Ups Are Free Until Your Elbows Start Clicking. Here's The Fix.

The bar in my hallway doorway cost nothing after the day I hung it. Then my right elbow started clicking at the bottom of every rep, and over the next two years I spent $232 and twelve months off the bar trying to quiet it. The fix, when I finally found it, was for the bar. Not for my elbow.

By Dan Whitfield

Contributing writer · Sep 30, 2026 · 9 min read

The Click Came Before The Bill

For years the cheapest part of my training was a bar wedged in the doorway of our upstairs hallway. No membership, no plates, no noise. I did pull-ups on it most days I walked past it, and some days I walked past it on purpose.

The first sign was a click. At the bottom of a hang, arms straight, something on the inside of my right elbow clicked like a knuckle. It did not hurt, so I ignored it for most of a year.

Then it started to ache. Not during the set. The ache showed up the next morning, on the inside of the elbow, when I picked up a coffee mug or turned a doorknob. By the end of that winter I could not do five pull-ups without paying for them all day.

So I did what every forum tells you to do. I rested. A lifter on the StrongFirst forum who had the same ache wrote that this took about 6 months of no pullups. Mine took six months too, and for all six the bar in the hallway held laundry. When I came back I used the same bar, the same grip and the same doorway, and the ache was back inside a month.

The second time, I started buying things. Here is the whole bill, at what each one sells for today.

Three Things For The Elbow, One For The Doorway

The first three buys had one thing in common. Every one of them was aimed at my elbow. Not one of them changed what I was doing to it fifty times a week.

It took a second layoff for me to see the pattern. The strap, the twist bar and the brace all worked on the elbow. The bar was still deciding how my hands sat on it, and it had only ever made one decision.

What I priced and did not buy

A multi-grip bar has neutral handles welded on, and it is a real answer. REP's wall-mounted one is $139.99 and Titan's ceiling-mounted one is $189.99. Both go into studs or joists with a drill, and both replace a bar I already liked. If you are starting from nothing, the ProsourceFit Multi-Grip Lite hangs in a doorway for $25.99 and has a neutral position. It wins this whole page on price. Its handles sit at one fixed width, and for me it would have been a second bar in the same doorway. Titan also sells a pair of neutral handles for $34.97, but they fit only Titan's own 43 inch bar.

Rings win on the thing this story is about. They let each wrist turn wherever it wants on every rep, and plenty of people with sore elbows swear by them. On StrongFirst, a lifter who has had three or four bouts of inside elbow pain over the decades wrote Restricting myself to ring chins has helped tremendously. REP sells wood rings for $39.99 and Titan sells a pair for $55.97. I already own some, and they hang in the garage for dips from a joist too low for a full hang. Hung from a hallway doorway bar, the straps put the rings so low that my knees hit the floor before my arms were straight.

What A Pull-Up Grip Has To Change

After the second layoff I stopped shopping and wrote down what the thing actually had to do. Four rules, on the back of the brace's box.

1. Turn my palms in.A straight bar makes one decision for you. Your palms face away and your forearms stay turned all the way over for every rep. With your palms facing each other, the forearm sits halfway through that turn and the elbows travel forward, in front of the body, instead of out to the sides. That is the whole physical difference, and it is the one thing the strap, the twist bar and the brace never touched.
2. Work on the bar I already own.My bar was fine. I did not want a second one.
3. Nothing drilled, wedged or leaning on the trim.After the marks the doorway grips left, this one was not up for debate.
4. Keep my hang.Anything that hangs below the bar lowers my hands, and a hallway doorway only has so many inches before my feet touch the floor.

Everything I had tried or priced failed at least one rule. The strap, the twist bar and the brace failed the first. The doorway grips failed the third. The multi-grip bars failed the second, and the rings failed the fourth.

The Fix Was For The Bar, Not The Elbow

What finally cleared the list was a pair of hooks. The Kensui Swissies V2 are two nylon fiberglass handles that drop over the bar you already have. Each one hangs below the bar with a knurled 32 mm handle running across it, so your palms face each other on the same bar that used to force them forward.

Rule one, done. Rule two, done: Kensui's own chart lists bars up to 50 mm, just under two inches, and one owner reports a perfect fit on his 1.5 inch bar. Rule three, done: the hook is lined with rubber and nothing touches the trim. Rule four is the half. They hang below the bar, so my hands start a few inches lower than they used to. In my hallway that means a slight bend in the knees at the bottom, and I can live with that. In a lower doorway you might not.

The one that stuck

Kensui Swissies V2

★★★★★ 4.88 from 183 reviews · $39 a pair

• Turns your palms in on the bar you already own
• Hooks over bars up to 50 mm, with no tools and no drilling
• Costs less than the doorway grips or the brace did on their own

Most Of A Year Back On The Bar

The first week felt strange. My hands sat lower and a little wider than I expected, and my knuckles pointed at the wall instead of the ceiling. By the third week I had stopped noticing.

Here is what I can tell you honestly. The morning ache has not come back. The click has not gone away. It still shows up now and then at the bottom of a hang, which tells me the click was never the thing I should have been chasing. I can't tell you the handles did anything to my elbow. What they changed was the bar.

I was not the only one who went looking for a new grip after an elbow ran out of patience. Two owners, in their own words:

They are nylon fiberglass, not steel, so they feel light in the hand. Kensui says they are tested to 800 lb, and none of the 183 reviews I read reports one breaking.

Hands differ, so Kensui also makes the Swissies V2 MAX, a $49 pair with a different handle shape. One MAX owner wrote that its shape was the one that got him back to pull-ups. Either way, a new grip is a change to how you pull, not a promise about your elbow.

Every Grip Option, Side By Side

Here is where each option I tried or priced lands on the four rules. Each one wins something. Only one of them passed all four in my doorway, or close enough.

Prices read September 30, 2026 at each maker's own store: Jayflex, REP wall bar, REP rings.

Before You Order

I spent $232.34 and a year off the bar on things aimed at my elbow. The thing aimed at the bar cost $39.

Will they fit my bar?

Kensui's chart lists bars up to 50 mm across, which covers doorway bars, wall bars and most rack bars. Measure yours before you order.

Will I lose height?

Yes, a few inches. In a low doorway, bend your knees or cross your ankles behind you.

What if the angle does not suit me?

Send them back. Kensui refunds in full for 100 days, no questions asked.