February 17, 2026
Description
UPDATE February 2026 - It turns out that on hot surfaces the rod loosens because the materials gets too soft and deforms under load. On the other hand, I have one pair that I use only indoor, and it holds up well 1,5 years already.
Because parallettes are sports eqipment which get fully or partially loaded by your body weight I need to mention that it can potentially hurt you. Of course I tried my best to create a design that is safe and does not break (I have tested them for some days now with around 90kg bodyweight) but I can not guarantee for your safety so please use responsible and at your own risk. To reduce the chance of breaking (and potentially getting hurt) I recommend to test your parallettes by partially loading them with your body weight by stepping or maybe even jumping on them before you try any crazy calisthenics moves ;)
For the (hopefully) rare case that a part breaks, please let me know and send me some pictures and information about your print settings, so that I can update my design and prevent that break in the future.
Settings that I used to get a stable product.
Material: PETG
Z Seam Alignment: “Random” (Please make sure to do this. If all Z Seams are in a line, it creates a weak spot, which may break easily because of the high stress at the socket)
Wall Line Count: 3 (or even more)
Infill: 50%, “Grid” (could be less than 50%, but just to be sure)
Layer Hight: 0.28mm
Speed depends on the capabilities of your printer, but rather print too slow than too fast to guarantee good layer adhesion and reduce the chance of breaking.
No supports needed
High quality Parallettes can be very expensive. If you want you can spend more than 100€ for one pair. Of course there are cheap alternatives but they are usually made out of wood which I find not aesthetically pleasing enough. In addition to that expensive metal parallettes are heavy, which makes them uncomfortable to carry. So my goal was to create a design for parallettes that are reliable, easy to carry and look good. Also I do not like the idea of using screws to secure the plastic part to the wooden rod, and so far it works good without.
Around 400g of filament (cheap PETG worked for me)
2 x 40mm diameter smooth beech wood rods with the length of your choice. I used 2 x 50cm. This makes it possible to practise straight bar handstand, gymnastics pirouettes and planche and in addition to that they look more professional. A length of 25cm per rod is also common and sufficient for most use cases like handstands, push ups, L-Sits and so on.
8 x non slip stickers
(optional) Hot air gun
There are 2 versions. Version 1 is my first design. In version 2 I added the feature that it is possible to clip the parallettes together for easier transportation. In my opinion Version 1 looks better but Version 2 is more convenient. If you are not sure just pick Version 2.
(Now there is a third version, which is for 28mm diameter wood, it is smaller than the others.)
Print one “triangle” of the Version of your choice.
Try to stick one wooden rod into the socket until it reaches the restriction. This might take some force. If it does not work, pull it out. If you own a hot air gun, try to carefully heat up the hole. Be very careful to heat it up enough so that the rod goes in, but not too hot so that the contact area deforms. This worked well for me. If you do not own a hot air gun, don't worry, just scale the model up or down by some percent or change tolerance settings in your slicer and print again until you find a good fit. The rod should fit tight and should not rotate.
Print the other 3 “triangles” and stick them on to the rods. Make sure that the “triangles” on one rod are aligned. This might take some attempts.
Stick non slip stickers on the “feet” of the “triangles”.
If you have any questions about the assembly process, feedback or ideas for improvement or new features, please feel free to contact me, I will be happy to help you out.
License:
Creative Commons — Attribution — Noncommercial — Share Alike
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Lion
