Apparatus for human strength-training

Abstract

Current resistance strength-training machines for humans that use structural links and hinges to transfer resistance to muscles constrain the resisted range of motions of the bones of the body's limbs and trunk at their skeletal joints to one rotational degree of freedom. Alternatively, current strength-training cable-and-pulley machines limit biomechanical movements to two rotational axes against vector-resultant resistance. Unconstrained, the humerus, for example, rotates at its shoulder joint in three directions: pitch, yaw, and roll. Similarly, the radius and ulna can rotate at their elbow joint in two directions: pitch and roll. This invention creates a class of resistance strength-training machines that will provide greater efficiency and effectiveness during exercise by allowing the simultaneous combination of any pair of, or all of, pitch, yaw, and roll motions, each resisted separately, of a single bone or group of bones, such as the vertebrae, primarily about a connected, projected, or virtual skeletal joint.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] Not Applicable STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT [0002] Not Applicable DESCRIPTION OF ATTACHED APPENDIX [0003] Not Applicable FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0004] This invention relates generally to the field of exercise equipment and more specifically to apparatus for human strength-training. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0005] Resistance strength training exercises for the muscles of the human body typically require their repeated contraction and extension through relative motions of the skeletal bones and joints. Commonly understood terms for describing skeletal joints include such terms as shoulder joint, elbow joint, wrist joint, hip joint, knee joint, ankle joint, etc. Other types of joints would include those of the spinal column that allow it to bend and twist as a whole, or locally at individual vertebra or at the neck for example. [0006] Anatomically, joints such as the elbow joint actually consist of sev...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0025] Another object (advantage) of the invention is to provide humans with resistance strength-training machines that reduce the need for separate exercises by increasing freedom of movement and therefore allowing more complex body motions.

[0045] To provide resistance strength-training machines for humans that enhance the development of a targeted muscle, or muscle group, by allowing and resisting an extensive and multidirectional range of motion.

Problems solved by technology

Alternatively, free weights that may be held or attached to a limb of the body do not prevent the normal rotations of skeletal bones, or group of bones, about their joints.

Hence, the user may select a suitable weight for flexion and extension yet find it inadequate in rotational inertia for simultaneously-performed twisting motions, that is, roll motions about the axis of the skeletal bone.

Mechanisms that transfer resistance to body motions through other means may also have limitations similar to the devices described above.

Nevertheless, such a machine restricts motion of the forearm to rotation about a single axis, namely a pitch axis, of the elbow joint, through rotation of the machine lever about a single machine joint.

However, resistance to pronation and supination would be unintended by the design, slight, and non-adjustable, as it would result merely from twisting of the cable and any incidental friction at the pulley.

However, because the axis of rotation of the skeletal bone would have a vector component perpendicular to the cable, a concomitant pitching and yawing resistance would result about the said skeletal joint.

Also, as a user adaptation, this said exercise is uncomfortable and abrasive to the hand.

But such machines are specifically designed for, and therefore are restricted to, providing only one load common to each rotational axis at a skeletal joint.

Hence, any pair of rotations of a skeletal joint cannot be performed separately and distinctly during the exercise and without reconfiguring the apparatus between the different exercises.

Additionally, limited by the underlying concept of their invention, such machines cannot provide an intended resistance about a third orthogonal axis of rotation.

A cable, which is a tensile element, cannot provide intended resistance about its own axis.

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