JPH07289659A - Step type exercising machine - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve calorific value indication accuracy, regarding a step type exercising machine having consumed calorie indication function. CONSTITUTION:A block 18 is provided at the front section of a base frame 2, and a spur gear 18a formed on the rear side of the block 18 is made to gear with the spur gear 21 of a rotary encoder 20. Also, the front sections of a pair of pedal levers 13 and 14 fitted to a handle post 6 are connected to each other with a wire 19, and this wire 19 is taken up with the block 18. The rotary encoder 20 is connected to a processing device 11 and calorific coefficient data is stored in the device 11. According to this construction, when the levers 13 and 14 are alternately stepped down, the block 18 synchronously rotates, and consumed calorie is computed via the pulse counts of the encoder 20 and the calorific value coefficient. The result of the computation is shown on a LCD 10.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a step type exercise machine, and more particularly to a step type exercise machine having a calorie consumption calculating function.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a step type exercise machine having a handle and a pair of pedals on a base frame and provided with an interlocking mechanism for alternately moving the pair of pedals up and down, a function of calculating and displaying the number of steps and calorie consumption is provided. Things are known. This type of step type exercise machine is formed so that, for example, a reed switch is provided in a frame, a magnet is attached to the pedal, and the magnet opens and closes the reed switch as the pedal moves up and down to count the number of steps. Then, the calculation unit calculates the calorie consumption from the user's weight input in advance and the measured step number, and displays the step number and the calorie consumption on the display panel.

[0003]

A conventional step-type exercise machine having a calorie consumption calculating function calculates calorie consumption by the number of steps. Therefore, when the pedal is depressed to the limit of the swing range, the pedaling force is adjusted. Even when the pedal stroke is different, such as when the pedal is lightly stepped, there is no difference in the calculated value of the calorie consumption, and it is difficult to say that it indicates the actual calorie consumption and exercise amount.

Therefore, there arises a technical problem to be solved in order to reduce the error of the calorie consumption display with respect to the exercise amount to improve the display accuracy and to improve the calorie display accuracy of the step type exercise machine. The present invention aims to solve the above problems.

[0005]

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION The present invention is proposed in order to achieve the above-mentioned object, and a pair of pedals is vertically swingably and pivotally mounted in parallel on a frame, and a damper or the like is attached to the pedals. In the step-type exercise machine, which is provided with a braking device, means for detecting the number of times the pedal is lifted and lowered, and a processing device for calculating and displaying the calorie consumption based on the detection value of the detecting means, A displacement encoder such as a rotary encoder or a variable resistor for detecting the stroke of the pedal is interposed between the pedal and the frame, and the processing device is configured to calculate the calorie consumption based on the detection value of the displacement detector. The present invention provides a step type exercising machine, which is characterized in that the arithmetic unit of (1) is configured.

[0006]

When the pedal of the step type exercise machine is depressed, the pedal stroke is measured by the displacement amount detector such as a rotary encoder provided between the pedal and the frame. The processing device calculates the calorie consumption based on the measured pedal stroke, and the calculated value is accumulated in the memory and displayed by the display.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. 1 and 2 show a step-type exercise machine 1, in which a base frame 2 includes a central frame member 3 arranged in the front-rear direction and lateral frame members 4, 5 fixed in the front and rear ends of the central frame member 3. It consists of A handle post 6 is erected on the central frame member 3, and a handle shaft 7 is fitted on the handle post 6. A T-shaped bar handle 8 is fixed to the upper end of the handle shaft 7, and an operation panel 9 provided in the middle of the bar handle 8 projects forward.

Operation buttons (not shown) for inputting weight data, setting tempo of step pace sound and resetting display data, and an LCD 10 are arranged on the upper surface of the operation panel 9, and the processing unit 11 is provided in the operation panel 9. In addition, a power supply battery (not shown) is built in. The pedal support shaft 12 penetrates through the handle post 6 in the vertical middle portion and projects left and right, and the bearing holes of the pair of left and right pedal levers 13 and 14 formed of a steel pipe having a rectangular cross section form the left and right protruding portions of the pedal support shaft 12. Each of them is loosely fitted to the pedal support shaft 12 with a C ring or the like.
The pedal levers 13 and 14 are held by being fitted into both ends of the pedal levers 13 and 14. The front portions of the pedal levers 13 and 14 project forward (to the left in FIG. 1) from the bearing hole portion, and the pedal lever 1
Oil dampers 15 and 16 are interposed between the front portions of the steering wheels 3 and 14 and the upper portion of the handle post 6.

Further, a pulley supporting frame 17 is erected on the front portion of the central frame member 3, and the pulley supporting frame 1 is provided.
A pulley 18 is pivotally supported at 7. Then, the front portions of the left and right pedal levers 13 and 14 are connected by a wire 19, and the wire 19 is hung on the pulley 18 below, so that the left and right pedal levers 1 and 14 are connected.
A synchronous interlocking mechanism is formed in which 3, 14 are interlocked and alternately move up and down.

As shown in FIG. 3, the pulley 18 has a spur gear 18a having a diameter smaller than the outer diameter of the pulley 18 formed on the back surface thereof.
A small-diameter spur gear 21 fixed to the rotary shaft of the gear meshes with the spur gear 18a of the pulley 18. Although not shown, the rotary encoder 20 is connected to the processing device 11 in the operation panel 9 by a signal line wired in the central frame member 3, the handle post 6 and the handle shaft 7. The rotary encoder 20 is one in which contact patterns are radially arranged on a rotary disk and a fixed contact brush is brought into contact with the contact pattern to measure the amount of rotation of the rotary disk as the number of electric pulses, or an optical encoder using a photo sensor. Etc. may be used.

The rotary encoder 20 is of a type having a rotating direction discriminating function in which two fixed contact brushes, photosensors, etc. are provided and a phase difference is provided in the array of detectors. In this type, as shown in FIG. 4, the phases of the output pulses of the two detectors are different by, for example, about 90 degrees, and when either one of the output pulses A and B rises or falls. The direction of rotation can be determined by the state of the other output pulse. For example, as shown in (a) of the figure, when B is Hi at the time of the fall of A is the right rotation, when B is rotated to the left, B is Lo at the time of the fall of A as shown in the figure (b). And pulse B for pulse A
The direction of rotation can be determined by the state of.

Next, the calorie consumption calculation function of the step type exercise machine 1 will be described with reference to FIG. First, the operation panel 9
Then, the processing device 11 is started by pressing the power button, the weight data is input by the operation button, and the step pace, the exercise time, etc. are set (step 101). Next, when stepping on the steps 22 and 23 provided on the rear upper surfaces of the pedal levers 13 and 14 shown in FIG. 1 and stepping on which the steps 22 and 23 are alternately stepped on in accordance with the step pace sound is started, as shown in FIG. Each time the trailing edge of the output pulse A of the rotary encoder 20 is detected (step 102), 1 is added to the pulse counter, and depending on the state of the pulse B, the rotational direction of the rotary encoder 20, that is, either the left or right pedal lever 13, 14, It is determined whether or not is depressed (step 103). Then, the pulse counting is continued until the rotation direction is reversed (step 104), and 1 is added to the step counter when the rotation is reversed (step 105). Then, the measured pulse number is multiplied by the calorie coefficient set in the processing device 11 in advance to calculate the calorie consumption, and the calorie consumption is stored in the memory (step 10).
6). Then, the display process of the number of steps and the calorie consumption is performed (step 107), the process returns to step 102 and the above-mentioned process is repeated. In this way, the calorie consumption is calculated for each step of the pedal levers 13 and 14 based on the pedal stroke, and the calculated values are integrated to obtain the total calorie consumption and the number of steps for each step of the LCD 1.
Displayed at 0.

It should be noted that the processing device 11 is kept in a standby state at all times, and an automatic start function is provided for automatically starting the counting process shown in FIG. 5 when the rising or falling of the output pulse of the rotary encoder is detected. Good. In such a case, the operation of the power switch when starting the step becomes unnecessary, and the operability is improved. Alternatively, a potentiometer may be used instead of the rotary encoder 20, the resistance value of the potentiometer may be A / D converted to obtain the rotation angle of the pedal levers 13 and 14, and the calorie consumption may be calculated from the rotation angle. In addition to the above-described modifications, the present invention can be variously modified within the technical scope of the present invention, and the same action can be obtained even if a mechanical brake or an air damper is used instead of the oil dampers 15 and 16. And exercise effects can be expected, and it goes without saying that the present invention extends to those modifications.

[0014]

As described in detail in the above one embodiment, the present invention measures the amount of stroke of the pedal and calculates the calorie consumption based on the measured value. Therefore, the calorie consumption can be calculated according to the actual exercise amount. The invention is capable of displaying and eliminating display errors, which contributes to improving the performance of the step type exercise machine.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view of a step type exercise machine showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front view of the step type exercise machine shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is an enlarged view of a pulley supporting frame portion of FIG.

FIG. 4 shows output pulses of a rotary encoder,
(A) is a waveform at the time of right rotation, (b) is a waveform at the time of left rotation.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a calorie consumption calculation function.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 step type exercise machine 2 base frame 8 bar handle 9 operation panel 10 LCD 11 processing device 13,14 pedal lever 15,16 oil damper 17 pulley support frame 18 pulley 18a spur gear 19 wire 20 rotary encoder 21 spur gear 22,23 step

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A pair of pedals are swingably and vertically pivoted in parallel to a frame, a braking device such as a damper is provided on the pedals, and means for detecting the number of times the pedals are lifted is provided. In a step type exercise machine provided with a processing device for calculating and displaying the calorie consumption based on the detected value of the means, a displacement amount detector such as a rotary encoder or a variable resistor for detecting the stroke amount of the pedal is used as a pedal. And a frame, and the arithmetic unit of the processing device is configured to calculate the calorie consumption based on the detection value of the displacement amount detector.