Now that we have made the decision to work with a Schroth trained physio in our own home we have to get some wall bars fitted – these make it much easier to do the exercises – but they are not essential.  You can work with ‘chin-up’ bars in a doorway.  As we have years of these exercises ahead of us we decided to buy the wall bars and find a place at home to fit them.

There are a variety of options available on the internet and we opted for some full height (ceiling to floor) wooden bars.  We bought ours on the internet from Artimex Sport – www.artimexsport.com for about £200.

They arrived in the most enormous package and we unwrapped them in great excitement.  We had numerous discussions about where to fit the bars and decided we needed to use a strong external wall in the living room.  We started to move furniture and filing cabinets around and then discovered that the wall we had chosen had plaster board fitted.  If we fixed the bars to that the board would deform and we’d end up with massive cracks in the walls (yes, my husband is a bit of a DIY expert!).  So, we moved the filing cabinets back and thought again.

Finally we decided to fix them on the wall behind the living room door.  When the door is open they’re not too visible and when it’s shut there’s room to exercise.  So, out with the drill, tape measure, spirit level and a host of other DIY stuff.  We lifted up the first of the two side frames that hold the bars in place and – oh crap – our ceilings are too low!  Or, the bars are too long.  Either way they weren’t going to fit.  Fortunately Mr DIY also has a collection of saws in the garage so while I made mugs of tea he went out and chopped about 4 inches off each side frame!

After that they went up pretty easily.  We were also advised by Debs to fit a mirror behind the wall bars so that Chris could see himself while doing the exercises.  You can see the finished result here…not a bad job!