Weight Support Spool and Trigger Handle for Safer Free-Weight Lifts
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing weightlifting devices fail to adequately address the safety and convenience of lifting free weights, particularly in the pre-lift and post-lift phases, and are not universally suitable for both barbells and dumbbells.
Innovation Solution
The exercise weight support device features a modular design with adjustable trigger handles, externally operable controls, and improved bar wraps, allowing for safer and more versatile use with various free weights, including barbells and dumbbells.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If free weights are used for weightlifting, then the weightlifter is free to use their normal range of movement for their body type, but lifting free weights presents a greater variety of risks for personal injury
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a spotter arm as an intermediary device between the weightlifter and the free weights. The spotter arm includes a support structure with a cradle that holds the free weights and a trigger handle that controls a safety mechanism. This intermediary device allows the weightlifter to maintain freedom of movement while providing automated safety assistance to prevent personal injury.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If weightlifting machines are used, then safety is increased by limiting the range of movement, but muscle development may become limited to only particular muscles
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a dynamic safety mechanism where the spotter arm can move freely to accommodate the weightlifter's natural range of motion, unlike static weightlifting machines. The trigger handle controls a dynamic locking mechanism that engages or disengages based on the weightlifter's needs, allowing full muscle development while maintaining safety.
3Ease of operation
If the trigger handle is positioned close to the cradle, then the weightlifter can operate it with digits of the hand grasping the bar, but the weightlifter must reach underneath the bar which may be inconvenient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extends the trigger handle laterally outward from the cradle in a direction perpendicular to the bar, moving the control interface to a different spatial dimension. This allows the weightlifter to operate the trigger handle with their thumb or fingers without needing to reach underneath the bar, improving ease of operation while maintaining a relatively simple handle assembly configuration.
Data Source
AI summary
An exercise weight support device includes: a spool connected to a belt to suspend the device, the spool being rotatable to enable more or less of the belt to be wound therearound to change the device vertical position of the device; a ratchet wheel drivingly coupled to the spool to control rotation thereof; an outer frame having a cradle and/or a pair of hooks to support a bar of a free weight; a ratchet pawl connected to the outer frame at a fixed location relative thereto; and an extended trigger handle extending away from the outer frame, and manually operable to move the spool relative to the ratchet pawl between a non-operating position causing the ratchet pawl and teeth of the ratchet wheel to engage, and an operating position causing the ratchet pawl and the teeth of the ratchet wheel to disengage to control rotation of the spool.