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  Systems, methods, and computer readable media for determining a circuit training path in a smart gymRelated Patent Categories: Exercise Devices, Having Specific Electrical Feature, Equipment ControlThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20060058156. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention generally relates to systems, methods, and computer readable media for improving circuit training in a smart gym, and more particularly, to advantageous systems, methods, and computer program products for determining a circuit training path in a smart gym for efficient utilization of exercise equipment. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] Circuit training exercise programs typically consist of defining an ordered set of exercises performed on exercise equipment to work out particular muscles or muscle groups, each exercise having an associated duration or repetition count, and associated levels of resistance. Traditional gyms provide a limited number of stand alone pieces of exercise equipment, or stations, on which to accomplish these exercise sets. Each station can be used to perform a small set of specifically targeted exercises, for example, a tricep machine is operated by a user to exercise the user's tricep muscles, the target muscle. Since these stations can only be in active use by one individual at a time and each individual's exercise program is personal to that individual, there is often contention for pieces of exercise equipment between multiple individuals resulting in user downtime. [0003] Lengthy downtime between performing exercises is not desirable, since maintaining an elevated heart rate is important over the course of an entire circuit. For exercises with multiple sets, there is usually some desirable downtime between sets to rest the target muscle stressed by the target machine allowing two or more users to share a station by interleaving sets during each other's downtime. [0004] Furthermore, due to the increased demands on peoples lives, exercisers are requiring more efficient use of their limited time at the gym. At the same time, gym operators typically have limited budgets and would not typically purchase more equipment to accommodate increased usage. Additionally, spending money on equipment purchases requires more floor space in which to fit the additional equipment and increases the total maintenance cost for keeping all the equipment in working order. [0005] There is a growing surge in smart gym technology. Smart gyms can be characterized as combining computers with exercise equipment and associating identities with exercisers. Currently, some smart gym technologies allow training programs to be associated with user identities. A user can then identify themselves to a piece of exercise equipment with a unique key, and the equipment will retrieve their desired resistances and durations, and possibly record the user's progress. Some equipment can even retrieve settings for a user from the Internet, and maintain records of that user's progress. However, the current state of smart gym technology does not address the problem of optimizing the utilization of exercise equipment by users to minimize contention for an individual piece of equipment. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0006] Among its several aspects, the present invention recognizes that a need exists for mechanisms for optimizing the utilization of exercise equipment by users to minimize user contention for an individual piece of equipment. The present invention also recognizes that methods, systems, and computer program products are needed to provide an efficient path through an equipment circuit to an exerciser by automatically determining the next equipment station in the equipment circuit an exerciser will visit. [0007] To this end, the present invention addresses a variety of aspects of a smart gym which may advantageously comprise a plurality of station agent nodes, a management node, and a network providing connectivity between the plurality of station agent nodes and the management node. The station agent node preferably resides on a computerized exercise station and is operable to report the status of the exercise station. The station agent node also retrieves a suggested next exercise machine in the equipment circuit for an exerciser and directs a display to inform the exerciser of the suggestion. The management node maintains and directs the operations of the smart gym. The management node is responsible for collating information from exercise stations disposed in the equipment circuit. The management node retrieves an exerciser's personal program and analyzes the collated information to direct the exerciser from station to station through the equipment circuit, resulting in a circuit training path. [0008] A more complete understanding of the present invention, as well as further features and advantages of the invention, will be apparent from the following Detailed Description and the accompanying drawings. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0009] FIG. 1 is an illustration of an exemplary smart gym in which the present invention may be suitably implemented. [0010] FIG. 2A is a state diagram illustrating reservation states of a station agent node of FIG. 1 in accordance with the present invention. [0011] FIG. 2B is a state diagram illustrating vacancy states of an exercise machine of FIG. 1 in accordance with the present invention. [0012] FIG. 2C is a table illustrating the meaning for each state combination of vacancy and reservation states in accordance with the present invention. [0013] FIG. 2D is a table illustrating an exemplary portion of a personal exercise program. [0014] FIG. 3 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary message flow between a station agent and a management node of the system of FIG. 1 in accordance with the present invention. [0015] FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating a method for determining a start station and a next station in accordance with the present invention. [0016] FIG. 5 is a flow chart continuing the method of FIG. 4. DETAILED DESCRIPTION [0017] The present invention will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which several presently preferred embodiments of the invention are shown. This invention may, however, be embodied in various forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. [0018] As will be appreciated by one of skill in the art, the present invention may be embodied as methods, systems, or computer program products. Accordingly, the present invention may take the form of a hardware embodiment, a software embodiment, or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects. Furthermore, the present invention may take the form of a computer program product on a computer-usable storage medium having computer-usable program code embodied in the medium. Any suitable computer readable medium may be utilized including hard disks, CD-ROMs, optical storage devices, flash memories, or magnetic storage devices. [0019] The code may execute entirely on one or more computers, or it may execute partly on a server and partly on a client within a station device or as a proxy server at an intermediate point in a communications network. Regarding the former scenario, FIG. 1 illustrates of an exemplary smart gym system 100 in which the present invention may be suitably employed. The system 100 includes a management node 110 networked over a local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), or other intranet 140 with a set of station agent nodes 150A-C. Alternatively, the management node 110 may be networked via a wireless LAN, WAN or other intranet network with station agent nodes 150A-C and a handheld computer 170. The management node 110 may optionally be networked with a data store 130 over Internet 120 via an Internet service provider (ISP). With data store 130, an exerciser's exercise program is retrievable by multiple smart gym sites. Otherwise, the exerciser's exercise program is stored at management node 110. Each station agent node 150A-C is associated with an exercise machine 145A-C, respectively. Continue reading... Full patent description for Systems, methods, and computer readable media for determining a circuit training path in a smart gym Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Systems, methods, and computer readable media for determining a circuit training path in a smart gym patent application. ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. Each week you receive an email with patent applications related to your keywords. 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