Best Parallettes for Calisthenics: Brands Compared

What each brand offers

🇫🇷 Eric Flag

Two families. The beech pair comes in a long and a short version, and the Elevation Bars are a taller steel pair with a choice of round or square grip.

Models: Wooden long, wooden short, Elevation Bars (steel)
Wooden long: 30 cm usable, 36 cm total, 10 cm high, 1.5 kg per pair
Wooden short: 15 cm usable, 20 cm total, 9 cm high, 1 kg per pair
Grip: 40 mm wood, or 38 mm round / 42 mm square on steel
Load: 150 kg wooden, 250 kg steel

See the product

🇫🇷 MX-Sport

🇫🇷 Made in France

Handmade in the brand's own workshop in Morlaix, unvarnished, with cork pads. Because each pair is made by hand, the brand states that dimensions vary slightly between units.

Models: MX Bars V3, MX Bars Practice
V3: 25 cm long, 20 cm usable grip, 8.3 cm high, 1.3 kg per pair
Practice: 40 cm long, 35 cm usable grip, 8.3 cm high, 1.7 kg per pair
Grip: 40 mm beech
Options: Engraving

See the product

🇫🇷 Peisma

🇫🇷 Made in France

One pair that comes apart. Four bar lengths and two grip diameters mount on the same base, so changing your setup costs a bar rather than a pair. The bars are textured, which the brand presents as a way to train without chalk.

Bar lengths: 30, 40, 50 or 60 cm
Grip: 35 or 40 mm
Pads: Recycled rubber and cork
Options: 5 base colours, wood or black bars, engraving up to 100 characters
Dimensions: Height and weight not published

See the product

🇩🇪 Gornation

The widest range, with a separate model per height rather than one adjustable pair. The Pro is the low one and ships assembled. Nothing on it adjusts.

Models: Pro (low), Max (high), Active (compact), Metal, Wooden
Pro: 50 x 25 x 10 cm, grip 40 mm x 38 cm, pre-assembled
Materials: Beech, steel on the Metal
Adjustable: No

See the product

🇪🇸 Gorletic

The most customisable pair here. Six body colours, six grip tape colours or none, and engraving of a name or a phrase. The two bars clip together magnetically for storage.

Models: LowFit Pro, LowFit, Medium, Mini Active
LowFit Pro: 47 cm long, 21.5 cm base, 10.5 cm high, 1.7 kg per pair
Grip: 39 to 40 mm beech with rubber ends
Load: 100 kg per bar
Options: 6 colours, grip tape, engraving, 2-year warranty

See the product

🇵🇱 Caliathletics

Four models, split between wood and metal. The metal pairs use a 50 cm beech handle on two steel feet. Caliathletics does not publish dimensions for these, so ask before ordering if height matters to you.

Models: Wooden MINI, Wooden MEDIUM, Low Metal, Metal PRO
Materials: Beech, powder-coated steel
Dimensions: Not published

See the product

🇩🇪 Pullup & Dip

Two families here too, wood and steel. The wooden pair has an ergonomic handle and comes in a low and a medium height; the steel pair leads on grip width. We have no product shot for these yet.

Models: Wooden parallettes (low, medium), steel fitness parallettes, push-up bars
Materials: Beech, steel
Grip: 38 mm on the steel bar, 44 mm with the rubber
Dimensions: Heights and weights not published

See the product

What this page is

A comparison, not a ranking. We have not tested these pairs, so putting one above another would be inventing a verdict. What follows is what each brand publishes about its own products, checked against their official pages in September 2026, with the gaps left visible where a brand does not publish a number.

Measured tests are in progress. When a pair has been through ours, its review gets linked here.

If you want the criteria rather than the catalog, the parallettes guide covers low against high, wood against steel against PVC, and how to size a pair to your training.

Picking a height

Low, 4 to 8 cm, keeps your body close to horizontal, which is the position planche is trained in. Anything taller turns a planche lean into a tuck planche with a bad angle. High, 15 to 30 cm, is for dips and deficit handstand push-ups.

Most of the pairs above are low. Gornation splits the two into separate models rather than making one pair adjust, which is worth knowing before you order the wrong one.

Picking a grip

Diameter first. Most parallettes sit between 35 and 43 mm. Thicker taxes the forearms more, which is useful for grip work and unhelpful during a long static hold.

Then length, which matters more than most buyers expect. A 35 cm usable handle lets you shift your hands as a planche lean deepens. A 15 cm one leaves you where you started. That is the real difference between Eric Flag’s short and long versions, and between the MX Bars V3 and the Practice.

Then rigidity. Flex under load is barely noticeable in a 10-second hold and very noticeable in a 30-second one, and it gets worse the heavier you are.

What to check before you buy

The feet. Rubber or cork across the width of the base beats four small pads on smooth floors, and it is the single thing most likely to annoy you daily.

Storage, if the pair is high. Measure the cupboard before ordering.

And the load rating against your bodyweight plus anything you add. The published figures here run from 100 kg per bar to 250 kg, a wider spread than the price difference suggests.

Full brand catalog in the brands directory.