Exercise and / or treatment apparatus

Abstract

An exercise apparatus comprising a container 11 wholly or partially filled, in use, with a medium in the form of a fluidised bed 16. Preferably the fluid is a gaseous fluid, and the container 11 may incorporate a treadmill. The fluidised bed may provide resistance to a user via a current generated in the fluidised bed. The composition, viscosity or temperature of the fluidised bed may be variable.

Description

Field of the Invention The invention relates to exercise apparatus of the kind comprising a container which, in use, is wholly or partially filled with a medium on or in which a user of the apparatus can as desired be borne or be wholly or partially immersed. Exercise apparatus of the kind defined above constitutes, in the context of this present disclosure, exercise apparatus “of the kind in question”. Review of Relevant Art Known to the Applicants Exercise apparatus of the kind in question, defined as above, can of course include a swimming pool (the boundaries of the pool constitute the required container) and the scope of the invention, as outlined in the claims forming part of this specification, includes such pools. More specifically, however, the invention finds its application in exercise apparatus incorporating means whereby the medium provides a resistive force against which the user must exert themselves. Such apparatus is described and illustrated in, for example, published UK patent applications numbers GB2349333A; GB2378139A; and GB2379605A each naming the present inventors as joint inventors and published in, respectively, November 2000; February 2003; and March 2003. The prior specifications listed immediately above are concerned with hydrotherapy pools. The first shows such a pool in which an external and internal succession of ramps is provided in order that relatively nervous and fragile animals such as race horses can safely be led into and out of the pool and, once in there, can swim against the resistance of a current generated by variable strength waterjets. The second specification extends this idea to the incorporation of a treadmill above the tank floor so that a human user, for example, can exercise in the wholly or partially filled pool with or without the presence of the resistive jet-generated current, with the viscosity of the water providing a resistance to augment that provided by the treadmill itself. The third prior specification concentrates its disclosure of the incorporation of the necessary water circulating pump, a heater, a sand filter, and an ozonator, all within the same extension of a wall of the pool container. Each and all of these prior proposals illustrates and indeed assumes that, traditionally, water will be the medium in the pool. They advance proposals which concentrate on the physical design and layout of the water circulation and sanitation means. The first had only two previously published GB patent specifications cited against it in examination; the second had no fewer than six, five of them from the USA; the third, interestingly, had as its single citation just the first one (GB2349333A) of this trio, i.e. its forbear published barely ten and a half months before the third and last one’s filing date. In summary, this succession of three GB publications, each filed in the names of the current inventors, represent the most relevant art currently known to the applicants - who are also those same inventors now - on which the present invention is founded. Summary of the Invention In its broadest aspect, the invention is embodied in an exercise apparatus of the kind in question comprising a container wholly or partially filled, in use, with a medium in the form of a fluidised bed. This represents a wholly unexpected and surprising departure from the art as exemplified above, in every example of which the medium is assumed to be water and to need no further discussion as to its composition. The prior proposals, as pointed out, concentrate on design aspects of the apparatus as such. Many of these aspects are a result of the unquestioned decision to use water. No-one, to the best of the Applicant’s current knowledge and belief, has made so fundamental a change as to replace the water with a fluidised bed to constitute the medium into which the user inserts himself or herself (or in the case of an animal, itself) on entering the apparatus and against whose surrounding impact the intended exercise is to be carried out. The advantages which flow inherently from the decision to switch from water to a fluidised bed as the medium in the container are many. Prior art proposals as exemplified by the three previous published patent specifications listed above typically require several thousand litres of water, and at a depth of (say) 1.5m require special considerations for so significant a weight and pressure of water at the lower depths. Ease of maintenance, adjustment of e.g. a treadmill if incorporated, easy entry and exit from the lower depths for e.g. patients in therapy who cannot easily walk up and down ladders if at all, and who therefore require other individuals to assist and supervise them, all add to the overall energy requirement and time consumption needed to operate such conventional apparatus. Even with or without such conventional apparatus being in operation, such factors as the need to balance the pH levels of the water within acceptable tolerance levels; to similarly balance its temperature; to filter it; and inevitably to replace regularly such consumable parts as pumps, bearings, seals and so on are a regular occurrence and drawback. Embracing the inventive concept of a fluidised bed instead of water as the medium within the container, however, has many advantages. The effective density of the medium can be varied. The amount of liquid - if any - is much less, and its flow and / or top up can be far more easily controlled at much less energy expenditure. By varying the effective density of the bed, human and other objects with differing weights can be caused to tend to sink, float, or encouraged to achieve buoyancy; all with far less overall expenditure of energy within the system. That latter point is especially important at the date of filing this present application since the costs of energy, in Western Europe at any rate, have recently spiked; and there is no prospect of any immediate, if ever, fall from such levels. In what was thought until now to be a heterogenous and relatively politically stable developed global environment, recent actions by one rogue state have dramatically transformed that picture. The supposedly straightforward decision to substitute a fluidised bed medium for the hitherto universally accepted water content in such exercise apparatus becomes dramatically innovative when this broader picture is taken into account. The benefits given by the invention are particularly advantageous when the fluid of the fluidised bed is a gaseous fluid. The temperature of a gas or mixture of gases can quickly and relatively economically be varied up, or down, before or during use of the apparatus when compared with the very considerable time lag - and far greater overall energy consumption cost - of trying to vary the temperature of a water-filled container of the sorts of size needed to accommodate human and / or animal users. Exercising within a warm medium is beneficial for the relief of sprains and similar athletic or age related temporary conditions; but the opposite experience, namely that of deliberately abnormally cold gaseous or part-gaseous immersion, is equally if not more beneficial in other contexts as professional athletes, relatively recently, have discovered and (in a number of famous cases) deployed to maintain elite sports fitness levels well beyond the hitherto inevitably accepted effects of normal aging on such performers. In the broadest overall terms, the decision to use a fluidised bed brings with it a far greater and quicker thermal uniformity (i.e. a good heat transfer) throughout the medium when compared with the notoriously well known time lag needed for a water-heated pool to reach a uniform temperature throughout its depth. With the broad inventive concept now revealed, previous teachings can be applied advantageously to it and their advantages will be seen to be even greater than when, for example, GB2378139A was first published. In that prior specification, a treadmill was incorporated on the floor of the container and a drop-down door gave simultaneously access to and from the container and the ability to insert and remove the treadmill for maintenance or other purposes. That door in the prior specification was of course said to be so constructed as to seal the container when the container was in use and filled with water. The use of a fluidised bed, in particular a gaseous-fluid-based one, makes any sealing requirement de minimis by contrast; and the whole of the content and teaching of GB2378139A can be incorporated with advantage. The resistive-force-generating jets of GB2349333A similarly can be incorporated, with minimal adaptation, into the fluidised bed of the present invention. Whilst the bed itself forms a considerable resistive force to movement once a user is installed in and using the apparatus, the generation of a resistive current within the bed will have an even greater effect because of the bed’s components - and, as emphasised consistently throughout this introduction, at proportionately less energy cost than the same resistance generated if the medium was the traditional conventional water medium. Advantageously there may be provided means to vary the composition of the medium, e.g. by altering its viscosity and / or temperature and / or composition of the fluid before or during use of the apparatus. Where the fluid is a gaseous fluid, for example, air heated to a temperature of around 40°C on inflow could provide a “hot tub” or, by contrast, liquid nitrogen appropriately controlled and temperature-monitored could enable the apparatus to be used as an “ice chamber” as by the elite level professional athletes referred to in passing previously. Whatever form the apparatus takes, in this context, the use of gas rather than any water makes such basics as sanitisation, filtration, drainage and disposal of the medium a far easier and less energy consuming job than if the conventional water volumes had been used. The solid content of the fluidised bed medium may comprise individual particles of any shape which is both appropriate to the intended use and practical in the context of serving as an effective medium content for the purpose of the apparatus. Small spheres of for example plastics, appropriately sized, are one such potential embodiment and could, in another departure from conventional thinking, be a mixture of smooth-surfaced and profilesurfaced (e.g. roughened, knobbly, or even partially mildly spiked) outer surface pattern. In any given bed, at any time, for any particular use, there could be a predetermined and -again an advantage of the invention - variable mixture of such surface profiles in the solid medium component. None of this is available with conventional water as the medium; and all of it can be varied, relatively very rapidly when operating in context, given the way the solids can be drained (at one end) and reinforced with differing ones (at the other) during use of the apparatus. The term “exercise apparatus” when used in the context of the invention is not to be given an unduly limited interpretation. It has already been pointed out that the apparatus encompasses a pool; the “exercise” need not be limited to strength-building or therapy but is intended to encompass simple relaxation without any overt intent to exert bodily power. Brief Description of the Drawings Examples of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, which show presently preferred embodiments of the invention when put into practice. Other embodiments, as outlined above, are possible within the scope of the invention now that its inventive concept has been revealed. Those illustrated are shown by way of example only and are illustrated successively by Figures 1, 2 and 3 of the drawings. Description of the Preferred Embodiments In Figure 1, a container 11, sized to accommodate a human user of the apparatus, is rectangular in plan, side elevation and end elevation and may for example resemble in its dimensions the containers of any of the three previously published patent specifications referred to in this present disclosure. One notable difference is that, unlike those previous proposals, the container 11 of the present embodiment need not be made in stainless steel and need not, to anything like the same extent as previously, be made water-tight. It will of course be so constructed as to make most energy-efficient use of the medium it contains, but its designer already has considerable freedom when compared with conventional thinking in this field. One end wall 12 of the container 11 is hinged (13) about its base so as to form a drop-down door permitting entry to the container. In another embodiment (not illustrated or described) this could provide access to, for example, a treadmill of the kind shown and described in specification GB2378139A. In such a case, the belt of the treadmill would be porous as the gaseous fluid input to the container is fed, as indicated at 14, via an air diffusion tunnel at container base level under the input force of a blower 15. Where no treadmill is present, as in the current Figure I design, the top surface of the diffuser tunnel is perforated so that the incoming gas will rise automatically through the container and thereby through a bed 16 of appropriately sized and relatively densely packed spheres to form with the spheres a fluidised bed. Where a human 17 is to be the principal user of the apparatus, the bed 16 might for example have a depth of, say, 1.0 to 1.5 meters depending on the user’s requirement but the relative content as between spheres and gas can be determined and maintained appropriately without undue inventive thought being required. A box 18 is positioned above the container 11 and is charged, initially, with a payload of spheres of the kind making up the bed 16. A stirrer 19A is power operated and is of a variable output design so that the spheres 18 can be kept in constant - albeit usually relatively calm - mixed motion whilst the apparatus is in use. A delivery tunnel 19, which may be vacuum or gravity or mechanically operated, feeds supplies of the spheres 18 into the bed 16 at the same time as (or at intervals between) the incoming gas is fed, through appropriate filtration, up to the box 18 to mix with the spheres within the box. The temperature, pressure, flow rates and composition of the gas (or gases), the spheres in the bed 16, and the spheres emanating from the box 18 as desired, can all be controlled by those operating the apparatus. Controls (not shown) for this purpose could be incorporated on the inside surface of any or other of the walls of the container 11 for use by the user 17 thus enabling him or her to control, as he senses, the environment in which and against which he or she is operating; yet another advantage over the prior proposals. The apparatus of Figure 2 is essentially similar to that of Figure 1 and corresponding features of it are given the same numerals as in the Figure 1 embodiment. As shown in Figure 2, however, a canopy 21 fits over the top of the container 12 in use so that the gaseous stream rising through the particulate medium is caught under the influence of extractor fan 22 and fed down to a pipe 23 - externally of the container 12 - to re-enter the particulate medium within the container at 23 A. in this way, a measure of recirculation of the gaseous fluid is achieved, boosting the efficiency of the apparatus overall. The canopy 21 is hinged at its forward end, as indicated by numeral 24, to allow it to be swung open for a user 17 to enter the container and achieve a desired in-use stance or other body position. The user themselves can then shut the canopy into its in-use position as shown in Figure 2. Clearly there will be an appropriate separable link between the canopy, and the external recirculation pipe 23, for this to occur each time. Figure 3 again shows a modified version of the Figure 1 apparatus. This time, respective external recycling pipes 25, 26 collect a portion of the gaseous medium as it rises above the top of the particulate medium 16 and recirculate it downwards (with reference to Figure 3) to re-join the medium partway above the floor of the container. The objective is the same as that of the Figure 2 apparatus, namely to recirculate a portion of the gaseous fluid and improve the overall efficiency of the apparatus. As illustrated, the pipes 25, 26 are deliberately of differing lengths respectively so as to re-deliver gaseous fluid into the medium at differing heights above the container floor. Pipes 23, 25 and 26 are appropriately meshed at their ends so as not to ingest any of the spheres inadvertently. The box 18, in certain embodiments, could contain gaseous fluid only rather than spheres mixed, as illustrated, with incoming gas. Alternatively the spheres illustrated could be subject, instead of (or as well as) the incoming gas flow, to a constant sanitising stream of liquid and / or gas before being released at intervals to the container 11 via the delivery tunnel 19. In a further inventive development of the basic concept, the bed 16 could comprise individual solids of triangular and / or diamond and / or cube and / or lozenge shape - indeed, any shape or combination of shapes, with or without including spheres in the mix, as long as such shapes tended not to coagulate but to remain individually relatively free to move with respect to one another in use of the apparatus. In yet another inventive development, the solids forming the bed 16 could be wholly or partially coloured in an attempt to assist the mental aspects of therapy where the apparatus is used for therapeutic exercise purposes. That is, individually distinct solids could be coloured to contrast with other solids in the bed; or any selected number or numbers of solids could each individually be multi-coloured; or substantially the whole of the solids in the bed could be of a colour or colours or colour mix selected deliberately to provoke attention (in order to stimulate physical exercise) or to relax the user (to promote calm wellbeing feelings). In use, and in summary of the inventive advantages, the switch to a fluidised bed brings with it good thermal transport inside the system, good heat transfer between the bed and its container, and overall thermal uniformity analogous to that of a well-mixed gas and enables the apparatus to have significant heat capacity whilst maintaining a homogenous, easily and quickly adjusted, and low maintenance temperature field throughout. As previously indicated, and for the avoidance of doubt, the whole of the content of each of the three previously published GB patent specifications referred to is incorporated by reference into this present specification’s disclosure. Means of putting into practice apparatus embodying the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the field to which the invention relates and to whom this present disclosure is addressed. But whilst the claims which end this description are drafted in conventional format, it will already be apparent from the discussion above that the Applicant does not intend strict compliance with the literal meaning of any of the claims to be an essential requirement of the invention. The skilled reader, whether operating alone or in conjunction with others, may well discover one or more variants of a claimed integer or integers which achieve substantially the same result in substantially the same way as the inventive concept now revealed; and whose clearly achieving substantially the same result as the invention in substantially the same way was obvious to such a person - or team of persons - at the time. Again, such variants are clearly included within the overall scope of the invention. None-public experimentation and testing has shown that, where the medium comprises spheres, a sphere diameter of approximately 20mm to 22mm is advantageous especially in situations where the apparatus is to be used for therapy or for treatment generally. Apparatus embodying the invention also lends itself advantageously to use as a so-called “eco hot tub” or “ice bath” where a user intends simply to relax, once in the container, with no overt intention to exercise or exert himself or herself against a resistive force provided by the medium. In the case just outlined, the container could incorporate or be provided with a seat for the user which advantageously could be of a porous, e.g. woven, construction so as to allow the fluid component of the medium to permeate the space immediately surrounding the user. Such an embodiment of the invention, amongst other advantages which the skilled addressee will begin to appreciate gradually, is at base a cost effective replacement for the conventional hot or cold tub currently available. Whilst the incorporation of a treadmill has been mentioned above in outlining the many applications of the inventive concept, an exercise cycle; single or multiple step-up features; bench presses; and any appropriate number of other exercise and / or therapy equipment known from conventional gymnasium settings could be incorporated into the container of any apparatus embodying the invention with appropriate design. Whist such add-ons are known in themselves, incorporating any one or any combination of them into a container of the kind under discussion has to the best of the Applicant’s current knowledge and belief 5 not previously been publicised and is not, within this present context an obvious development to think of incorporating. In a similar spirit of inventive expansion of the apparatus and its features, the stirrer 19A could be replaced with - or augmented by - for example, fluid flow in the form of ozone 10 and in this context the housing 19A could be replaced with - or even more inventively could incorporate, as well as the stirrer mechanism - an ozone generator distributing an appropriate flow of ozone or other suitable fluid within and around the contents of the box 18. 15

Claims

1. An exercise apparatus of the kind in question comprising a container wholly or partially filled, in use, with a medium in the form of a fluidised bed.

2. An exercise apparatus according to claim 1 and in which the fluid is a gaseous fluid.

3. An exercise apparatus according to claim 1 or claim 2 and in which the container incorporates a treadmill.

4. An exercise apparatus according to any preceding claim and incorporating means whereby the fluidised bed medium is operable to generate a resistive force against which the user must exert themselves.

5. An exercise apparatus according to any preceding claim and incorporating means to vary the composition of the medium by altering the viscosity and / or the composition and / or temperature of the fluid before or during use of the apparatus.

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