CrossFit Home Gym: How to Hang Gymnastic Rings part II

In my first post about hanging rings, I showed you how I put up my personal set of rings in my garage. Over the holiday break, Ditty and I traveled to her parents house and I had another opportunity to hang rings. This time it was for my father-in-law, E, who had gotten us into CrossFit in the first place. (Two years ago he competed in the Masters Division at the South Central Regional CrossFit Games) He had a pair of gymnastic rings hanging outdoors on a pull up bar, but my new brother-in-law and I had the idea of putting them in the garage. Since the setup is different than mine (and probably more like many of you out there) I thought I'd share pictures and descriptions of what we did. 

 To give you an idea of the setup, we were working with a two car garage with 15ft. high ceilings. E wanted the rings pretty much in the middle of the garage so that he would face perpendicular to the garage doors. Luckily, there was a crawl space/small attic above the garage attached to one of the bedrooms.

 One of the biggest tasks was just getting the plywood up off the joists. The claw hammers we had did not grab the wood at the right angle, so it made for a time consuming task of pulling nails up. Eventually we drilled holes large enough at one end to pull the plank of wood up. (see above: there is a square cutout of the plank on the right side)

 After pulling the plank up, we used a tow webbing that was about 25ft. long and draped it across two joists. They acted as both supports so the load was spread out over two joists and also as extensions for the rings to hang from. We then used a drywall saw to cut holes for the webbing to drop down into the garage. Then we drilled holes in the joists and posted U-bolts to keep the webbing from swaying along the joists.

 In order to get the right length of the very long webbing, E was downstairs and attached the rings. We pulled up the slack until he thought they were a good height and then we tied it off using an alpine butterfly knot. (you can probably use any knot that won't loosen, but we just happen to run across this one as we were Googling) After we were finished, we nailed the plank back into place to further hold the webbing and knot in place. (You can also see the back of the U-bolt on the left joist)

 Here is a view from below. As you can see, the webbing made for a very convenient extension and already had extremely strong loops sewn into the ends. All we had to do was connect carabiners!

 Rings at push up level. (Jealous of that rower in the background? me too)

 A view to the outside of the garage.

E on ring push ups. Getting it done.

The next day we did a WOD Fight Gone Bad style (5 stations, 3 rounds of 1 minute of work at each with 1 minute of rest in between rounds)

Wall ball

ring push ups

sit ups

kettlebell swings

Prowler push

After doing a number of ring push ups (and handstand ring push ups) I can personally attest to the stability of the ring setup. If you have a similar setup in your home, go spend a few dollars on webbing and carabiners and get it done!