AU654199B2 - Leg extension exercise/rehabilitation machine - Google Patents

Description

L-lii ii :ii rr 654199Regulation 3.2

AUSTRALIA

PATENTS ACT 1990 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION FOR A STANDARD PATENT

ORIGINAL

Name of Applicant: Actual Inventor: Address for Service: IAN FRANCIS CROSSING IAN FRANCIS CROSSING R K MADDERN ASSOCIATES, 345 King William Street, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia Invention title: LEG EXTENSION EXERCISE/REHABILITATION

MACHINE

ii 1 Details of Associated Provisional Application No: PK 8170 dated 5th September 1991 The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to me.

1 This invention relates to body restraint means in an exercise machine which may be used for exercising parts of the human body, and although applicable to restraining a portion of a human body in various types of exercise machines, the invention is particularly applicable to a machine, or device, which is useful for exercising the knee of a user and muscles which are associated with movement of the knee joint.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION If for example an athlete exercises knee and associated muscles, and his leg is not fully wedged front and back to a restraint device, but there is free play between the shin and base of the calf muscle on the device which he uses, there is 5 a serious danger of damage if that exercise is associated with rehabilitation from knee surgery. Even if the exercise is only of a muscle building character, discomfort can occur, and frequently does occur in double leg extension exercise devices.

While the invention is particularly applicable to such devices, the same problem is encountered with certain other exercise devices and the invention can also be applied in numbers of instances. For example in the case of a squat S 25 machine, at the present time adjustment is provided for both height and distance separation of pads which are engaged by the shoulders to give resistance to upward movement from the squat position. If this invention is apolied to a squat machine, and the padded cylinders diverge then a user can move in to wedge his shoulders against the padded cylinders as close as is reasonably comfortable to the spine, without any adjustment requirement apart from possibly a height requirement, and even this is not necessary in many instances.

Another application of the invention is a rower, that is, a machine with a sliding seat which is moved in the fore-andaft direction with respect to a foot plate by means of a ©handle, and against an imposec load. It is necessary for T- la -'pr1 jM.T the foot plate to have associated with it restraint means which will restrain the feet from moving in an aft direction as well as in a forward direction, and the invention can be applied to a foot plate by having the padded cylinders extending laterally outwardly from a central location and diverging away from the foot plate so that the feet of a user can be wedged between the foot plate and surfaces of the padded cylinders.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 1o In this invention an exercise machine is provided with at least two padded cylinders which diverge from a central location so as to provide an outwardly increasing distance between body engaging surfaces, so that the body edgaging surfaces can accommodate and firmly restrain corresponding portions of human bodies of differing sizes when wedged between those is surfaces.

More specifically, the invention consists of a frame having a pair of cylinder support legs spaced from one another, a respective padded cylinder on each said support leg and having a body engaging surface, each said body .o 20 engaging surface diverging from a further body engaging abutment surface and S spaced therefrom by a distance which increases along the length of said body S engaging surfaces to define therewith a diverging space which will Saccommodate corresponding portions of human bodies of differing sizes and firmly restrain said portions when wedged between said surfaces.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE DRAWINGS Embodiments of the invention are described hereunder in some detail with reference to and are illustrated in the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 is a perspective view of leg extension exercise/rehabilitation machine which embodies the invention for retention of the ankles of a user; Figure 2 is a plan view of Figure 1; Figure 3 is a perspective view of a squat machine wherein padded cylinders engage the shoulders of a user; Figure 4 is a perspective view of a rower wherein the soles and insteps of the feet of the user are firmly retained when wedged between a foot plate and a pair of padded cylinders; and Figure 5 is a perspective view of an arm exercise machine, wherein wrists can be firmly wedged between diverging surfaces of cylinders.

In the first embodiment of Figures 1 and 2, a leg extension o exercise/rehabilitation machine 10 comprises a base frame 11 which supports a seat 12, the seat 12 having a seat back S support riser 13 which slopes upwardly from the back of the seat 12 and supports a seat back 14. At the front end of the seat, there are provided two hinges 15 one on each side and swinging arms 16 depend from the hinges 15, the swinging arms being tubular, and having secured to them a U-shaped support frame 17 having legs directed inwardly towards a vertical central plane of the base frame 11 but those legs diverge from a central part of l U-shaped support frame and each carries oil it a padded cylinder 18 which is preferably but not necessarily rotatable. Therefore the body engaging surfaces of the padded cylinders 18 diverge away from the central part of the U-shaped frame towards the central vertical plane enabling a user's foot to be moved between them until the foot is firmly wedged between two padded surfaces, one engaging the instep and the other engaging the heel. The machine also comprises a control valve 20 and a pump cylinder/piston assembly 21 in a hydraulic circuit which is in accordance with other inventions of the applicant and although forming an essential part of this machine does not form an essential part of this invention.

-3 '7 S 'Vy CY' With the above described arrangement, a user can be seated on the seat 12 with his back against the seat back 14 and his feet wedged between the padded cylinders 18 of each pair which engage instep and heel firmly without any "gree play".

S LA\O c r. c-% This is achieved automatically and almost, =t l by the user without there being any adjustment device which would otherwise have been used in accordance with known art.

As said, the invention may also be applied to a squat machine 3 as illustrated in Figure 4 The squat machine in Figure 3 has a base frame 25 and an upstanding post 26 at the rear end of the base frame, the post 26 terminating at its upper end in a hinge 27 from which extends a cantilever arm 28 coupled back near the hinge 27 to the base frame 25 by piston/ cylinder assembly 29 which is arranged in much the same way o as in the first embodiment, the arrangement being such that o the arm 28 can be moved upwardly against pressure imposed by Sfluid within the piston/cylinder assembly 29, and the rate of S- flow can be adjusted by valves 2 As in the first embodiment, there are provided two padded cylinders 18 carried on projecting legs of a U-shaped frame 17 at the swinging end of the arm 28, and the legs of the Ushaped frame 17 diverge from the central location thereof but instead of laterally as in the first embodiment, they project downwardly and forwarl.iy over the base frame 2'; Because of the open mouth at the forward ends of the padded cylinders 18, a small user can move his neck into the space between those cylinders 18 until the cylinders reach comfortable positions on respective sides of the spine, and the lateral 4c of the cylinders with respect to the shoulders is a function of the inward movement of the user.

In the first and second embodiments, the body engaging surfaces are surfaces of the padded cylinders 18. However that need not necessarily be the case as can be seen from Figure 4 which illustrates a third embodiment being a rower, 4 wherein the padded cylinders co-operate with a foot plate to 1-4 provide the opening within which the feet of a user can be wedged.

In Figure 4, a rower comprises a base frame 35 which supports a pair of runners 36 between its ends and these runners 36 guide a seat 37 for fores and-aft movement. There is a swivelling arm 38 pivoted to a longitudinal frame member 39 which is beneath the runners 36, and a pair of arms 40 carried on the upper end of the swivelling arm 38, and the swivelling arm 38 is coupled to the forward end of the base frame 35 by means of a piston/cylinder assembly 41 as in the other embodiments.

The forward ends of the runners 36 terminate in an upwardly extending but forwardly sloping foot abutment plate 43 which is engaged by the soles of the febt of a user, and that prevents any forward movement of the user as the user pulls the arms rearwardly, but to correct any tendency for the user to move rearwardly as the arms are pushed fully forwardly, use is again made of padded cylinders 44. Each padded cylinder 44 however is carried on outwardly extending legs 45 of a T-shaped support, but the legs 45 are not parallel to the foot plate 43 but diverge outwardly along their length relative to the foot plate 43. This provides again a diminishing distance from an open mouth between 20 the foot plate 43 and the padded cylinders 18 for the feet to be inserted sufficiently to prevent any "free movement" of the feet when the device is used.

A fourth embodiment is illustrated in Figure 5. An arm curl exercise machine S" 50 is provided with hydraulic restraint means 51 and an elbow pad 52 as in 1s prior art. The user's arms are located between padded legs 53 carried by a swivel frame on the device 50, and the lower leg is straight sided (truly cylindrical). However the upper leg is curved so that the arm engaging surfaces diverge transversely outwardly from a central plane of the machine so that the user's arms are positionable between those surfaces, and by moving 3 them towards the centre, they firmly engage the pads of both legs.

A user rests his elbows on an elbow pad 52, and his wrists are wedged between padded cylinders 53. A larger framed person will clearly have his wrists more widely separated than a smaller person.

In all instances, the padded cylinders 18 can either be fast with the frames to which they are secured or alternatively rotatable thereon. Each cylinder has a body engaging surface and is ro-operable with a second body engaging surface which can but not necessarily be a surface of another cylinder that is spaced from the other body engaging surface by an increasing distance along its length which is able to accommodate them and firmly restrain portions of the human bodies of different sizes when wedged between the body engaging surfaces.

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Claims (7)

1. Body restraint means co-operable with portions of a human body and being a part of an exercise machine, comprising a frame having a pair of s cylinder support legs spaced from one another, a resper.tive padded cylinder on each said support leg and having a body engaging surface, each said body engaging surface diverging from a further body engaging abutment surface and spaced therefrom by a distance which increases along the length of said body engaging surfaces to define therewith a diverging space which will accommodate corresponding portions of human bodies of differing sizes and firmly restrain said portions when wedged between said surfaces.

Body restraint means according to claim 1 wherein said frame has a U- shape and said cylinder support legs diverge from the centre of the frame, each Is said cylinder being rotatable on a respective leg and its said body engaging surface being co-operable with the body engaging surface of the other said cylinder.

3. Body restraint means according to claim 2 wherein said e ercise 20 machine is a leg extension exercise/rehabilitation machine, and further comprising two said frames which are laterally spaced from each other, and the legs of each said frame diverging from the legs of the other, and being so Sspaced apart that they will accommodate and firmly restrain a shin and the base of a calf muscle of a human leg within a range of sizes. S

4. Body restraint means according to claim 2 wherein said exercise machine is a squat machine and comprises one said frame wherein said legs are symmetrical with respect to a central fore-and-aft plane of the machine and diverge in a rearward direction.

Body restraint means according to claim 1 wherein said exercise machine is a rower having an upstanding foot plate at its forward end, and said j frame has a T-shape, having two said legs which extend laterally from a central vertical plane of the rower at an increasing distance from a surface of the foot plate, said distance being such that the foot plate surface and body engaging surface of each said padded cylinder will accommodate and firmly restrain the sole and instep of a human foot within a range of sizes. -Sf Ir r

6. Body restraint means according to claim I wherein said exercise machine is an arm exercise machine having an elbow pad, and two said s padded cylinders spaced from the elbow pad and diverging outwardly from a central vertical plane of the machine.

7. Body restraint means substantially as described in the specification with reference to, and as illustrated in any one of the four embodiments shown in io the accompanying drawings. Dated this 11th day of August, 1994. IAN FRANCIS CROSSING By his Patent Attorney KEN MADDERN 7 7 ABSTRACT An exercise machine (10) is provided with at least two padded cylinders (18) which diverge from a central location so as to provide an outwardly increasing distance between body engaging surfaces, so that the body engaging surfaces can accommodate and firmly restrain corresponding portions of human bodies of differing sizes when wedged between those surfaces. '.4