If you’ve been around enough old gyms you’ve probably noticed this Medieval-torture-like apparatus and wondered just what was it for.
The apparatus goes by several name; gymnastic wall bars, Swedish ladder, stall bars, Swedish wall, and gymnastic ladder. Invented in the early 1800s by a Swedish teacher Per Henrik Ling, as a way to get relief from his arthritis. The wall bars found support from the Swedish king and Ling would go on to form The Royal Institute for Gymnastics.
As Swedes started emigrating to America in the mid-1800s to early 1900s, the wall bars came too and quickly caught on. With Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota seeing 70% of those new arrivals, it’s probably more likely that you see these in old-Midwestern gyms.
Wall bars were placed in many schools and were used in physical education classes for climbing and other exercises.
Mark Sheridan Academy, where my son went to school, was built around 1880 and the gym is part of an addition added in 1901. I’d wager that the wall bars there are not 123-years old, but can’t image there were installed after the 1960s.
Steinmetz High School, Chicago
Steinmetz High School in Chicago’s Belmont-Cragan neighborhood on the northwest side was one of the few gyms I photographed for the book that still had wall bars in their gym. Steinmetz also has three gyms. One for most varsity games, this one which is small and mostly used for p.e.. And a third gym used for JV games and sometimes girls varsity games.
Having three gyms is what mostly has kept the wall bars here in place. The school was built in 1934 and looking at the condition of the wall bars, it’s a good possibility they are as old as the walls they are on.
You can see more of Steinmetz’ gym here.
Still in use
Here’s a link to a fitness station at a town’s park in Canada that has a Swedish ladder. Along with some animations on how to use them.
A quick Internet search for “Swedish ladder” will return plenty of result of units for sale. Apparently they are still quite popular with gymnasts and others.
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