We have the X-Pole A-Frame at home and we think it is pretty special. We love how quick it is to put up and take down, we love that throughout lockdown we were able to practice aerial yoga and aerial hoop whenever we wanted to – well almost whenever we wanted to – the weather did sometimes get in the way of our practice.
Installation
The A-Frame is simple to put up and I do it in about 10 minutes now I have figured out how to do it. The top bar connects to two end bars. 4 extendable legs then connect into the end bars. Once at this stage you stand the frame up and extend the legs.
The instructions say that you need two people to put the A-Frame up but I put it up on my own. Sometimes I do think it would be easier if I had an extra pair of hands – but where there is a will there is a way. We wouldn’t recommend you put it up on your own if you don’t know what you are doing or if you are not confident about doing it. It is always best to follow the instructions.
Once the rig is erected there are bags you fill with sand that you pop around the bottom of the legs and straps you link the legs together with to make it a bit more stable.
The Positives?
In our opinion, the great thing about this rig is that you can take it almost anywhere with you. Unlike other circus rigs which are generally much bigger – you can take this with you and pop it up quickly either with a friend or on your own (see blurb above) and practice. You can practice almost any aerial art on it including yoga, hammock, sling (no dynamic drops), static trapeze, hoop and flying pole. We have also used our TRX straps on it as well.
If you have a big enough room at home you could even use this inside. We haven’t tried it yet as we don’t have enough space. But we have seen pictures of people using it at the lowest height in conservatories and front rooms.
However, the lower height and construction, when compared to bigger rigs, is that you can’t do dynamic drops on it. If you want to do dynamic drops then look at bigger, more expensive circus rigs.
If you want to take a look at the size of bigger circus rigs, take a look at this video (1).
Cost
Another positive about the A-Frame is the cost. When compared to other rigs on the market the cost is very reasonable. Other rigs are bigger and designed for circus acts, so that explains the price difference. A competitor, prodigy have just released a similar rig on to the market, the Prodigy Aerial Yoga Rig but that has been designed for aerial yoga only and not their other aerial arts. If you just want the A-Frame for yoga then take a look at our review on aerial yoga stands.
Any Negatives?
The only negative is that sometimes we would like to leave it up in the garden, but the steel bar might rust. We do wonder if they could make a coated one that could stay up all year round?? If you want a permanent fixture in your garden, the fitness tree is perhaps an option for training (post on this coming soon.)
The other thing we have noticed is that sometimes the little pins in the end bars that release the top bar get a bit stuck, but we have found that with a bit of TLC and wd40 we have been able to get them working properly again – we did figure this out on our own and didn’t seek help from the customer support team. When looking at the X-Poles website we have found that you can buy replacements.
Customer Service
Prior to ordering the X-Pole A-Frame, we contacted the customer service team with a few questions like what size of silks they would recommend we bought to practice that discipline and if we could use TRX cables. We are pleased to say that we got speedy helpful responses.
In the past, we have contacted the customer support team at x-pole over some minor things to do with poles and they were very helpful in their responses then. So they do seem to be consistently good at helping customers.
Overall – Would We Recommend?
If we were looking for a rig again we would buy the X-Pole A-Frame and we would recommend it to our friends as well.