I started my circus training when I was 23.  I took a flying trapeze class at the then San Francisco School of Circus Arts (now Circus Center) and fell in love with it.  I was the baby in the class, and for a year I hung out (literally) with all sorts of people - IT gurus, retired and working doctors, DJs, you name it.  Hanging from bars with youthful adults is loads of fun.

When you do something you enjoy, you want to get better at it.  Not two months into my flying trapeze classes, my instructor, Scott, told me there was one piece of equipment I needed to improve the height on my flying trapeze swing:  a pull-up bar.

The next day I spent 20 bucks on the cheapest bar I could find and installed it in my door frame.  I move a lot, and that pull-up bar came with me to six more apartments or houses from 2002-2006. 

Circus performers get ripped using their own body weight and things like pull-up bars, and so can you.  There are loads of exercises you can do on a pull-up bar, and over the next few weeks I'll tell you about many of them.  But first you have to get one.  Then the fun begins!