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Rowing machine simulators

Rowing machine simulators description/claims

This Utility Patent Application claims priority to Australian Provisional Patent Application No. 2007900315 filed on Jan. 23, 2007, which is incorporated herein by reference.

The present invention relates to rowing machine simulators and, in particular, to various improvements to and in rowing machine simulators.

The invention has been developed primarily for use with dynamically balanced rowing machine simulators and will be described hereinafter with reference to this application. However, it will be appreciated that the invention is not limited to this particular field of use and is applicable to many different types of rowing machine simulators as would be understood by a person skilled in the art.

Static rowing machine simulators have been long known for use in both general strength and fitness training, or for use specifically for oarsmen to practice their rowing. In these known static simulators, a seat is slideably mounted to a rail so as to simulate the sliding motion of a seat in a rowing boat. A typical example of a static rowing machine simulator can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,396,188, and reference is made to FIG. 1 which reproduces a drawing from this US prior art patent.

As shown in FIG. 1, the static rowing machine simulator includes an energy dissipation device in the form of a flywheel that is driven by a chain connected to a handle in front of a rower. When the rower is seated on the sliding seat, the feet are placed on footrests which are attached to the frame upon which the seat slides. A rowing or pulling motion on the handle causes the chain to move and thereby rotate the flywheel.

Unfortunately, static rowing machine simulators such as the example shown in FIG. 1 do not properly simulate the forces an oarsman is exposed to during normal rowing action. As such, the known static rowing machine simulators are acknowledged by health professionals as being potentially detrimental to the oarsman by increasing the likelihood of injury to the oarsman's knee, back and shoulders.

In order to more accurately simulate the forces that would be experienced by an oarsman in a boat, the subject of U.S. Pat. No. 5,382,210 (Rekers) was developed. A right hand side view of the Rekers simulator is shown in FIG. 2. The disclosure of the specification of the Rekers US patent is hereby incorporated herein in its entirety.

In the dynamically balanced rowing machine simulators such as Rekers, the energy dissipation device (flywheel in the Rekers patent) is also slideably mounted to the frame independent of the slideable movement of the seat. That is, during use by an oarsman, the slideably mounted seat and energy dissipation device move independently of each other apart and together as a function of the stroke of the oarsman. In the Rekers prior art, the dynamically balanced rowing machine simulator stabilizes the energy dissipation device (flywheel) and the oarsman independent of internal friction and/or hysteresis in any elastic elements in the simulators.

It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that when an oarsman sits on the seat of the simulator of the Rekers patent, they place their feet on the foot rests which are slideably mounted with the energy dissipation device flywheel so that pulling on the rowing machine simulator handle and release thereof causes the energy dissipation device and seat to move apart and together during the initial stages of a stroke and the final stages of a stroke respectively. It is known that the disclosure of rowing machine simulators such as those of the Rekers patent provides significant improvements in the simulation of the experience an oarsman would receive when rowing a boat on the water as not only is the movement of the sliding seat simulated, but also the movement of the boat by means of the movement of the energy dissipation device flywheel unit. Use of simulators such as those of Rekers reduces the risk of injury that is presented by the use of static simulators.

Whilst the rowing machine simulators of the type disclosed in the Rekers patent are significant improvements over what is known, it would be preferable to have a rowing machine simulator which yet more realistically simulates the experiences of an oarsman rowing a boat on the water. As would be understood by a person skilled in the art, other conventionally known dynamically balanced rowing machine simulators typically only address one or two specific conditions experienced during an oarsman rowing.

It is the genesis of the present invention to provide an energy storage device and a rowing machine simulator employing the energy storage device, and an improved dynamically balanced rowing machine simulator to simulate the forces experienced by an oarsman during rowing, or to provide a useful alternative.

According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided an energy storage device for a rowing machine simulator having a rowing handle connected to an energy dissipation device, said energy storage device configured to be disposed intermediate said rowing handle and said energy dissipation device and configured to elastically absorb a predetermined proportion of the force applied to said rowing handle by an oarsmen during the early phase of a stroke wherein said elastically absorbed energy is released during later phases of said stroke.

According to a second aspect of the invention there is provided a rowing machine simulator having a rowing handle connected to a static or dynamically mounted energy dissipation device, said rowing machine simulator including an energy storage device according to the first aspect of the invention.

According to a third aspect of the invention there is provided a method of providing an energy storage device in a rowing machine simulator having a rowing handle connected to an energy dissipation device, said method including the steps of disposing said energy storage device intermediate said rowing handle and said energy dissipation device, and configuring said energy storage device to elastically absorb a predetermined proportion of the force applied to said rowing handle by an oarsmen during the early phase of a stoke and configuring said energy storage device to release said absorbed energy during later phases of said oarsmen's stroke.

According to a fourth aspect of the invention there is provided a method of providing a rowing machine simulator having a rowing handle connected to an energy dissipation device, said method including the steps of providing an energy storage device according to the third aspect of the invention.

According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a dynamically balanced rowing simulator including:

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