Patent Application
20170361149
Not applicable.
The present disclosure generally relates to an apparatus that facilitates the safety of a person lifting weights on a bench press assembly.
Exercise is responsible for vast numbers of injuries annually. The bench press for example, which involves a person lifting weight on a barbell while lying prone on a bench, is an exercise notorious for its potential to cause serious and even fatal injuries. A conventional bench press includes a bench and a set of upright supports that hold a weighted barbell in an upright position. A user lies down on the bench, lifts the barbell off the supports, lowers the barbell to touch the chest, then pushes it back up until the arms are straight, and repeats the process for the duration of the exercise routine. At the end of the repetitions, the user puts the barbell back on the racks. If, at any time during this exercise, the barbell slips from the person's grasp or the user otherwise loses control of the barbell, it may fall on the user's face, neck, chest, or abdomen, resulting in serious bodily injuries including even asphyxiation and death.
Injury may result even when a person maintains a grip on the barbell but can no longer raise the weight from the person's chest. Specifically, it is important for a participant who seeks to improve strength to lift at or near his or her limit, i.e. the most weight that can be lifted in a given series of one or more repetitions. This results in the most progressive improvement in the strength of the particular muscle group targeted via the bench press. Thus, inevitably, regular bench pressing will result in episodes when a person is stuck with a barbell on their chest because an attempt to increase performance failed.
To prevent such accidents, especially when using heavier weights, users usually have one or more spotters to either catch a slipping barbell or help a lifter put the barbell back on the supports when lifting fails. However, a spotter is not always available to the many people who, for one reason or another, bench press alone at home or at a time when a spotter is not immediately available. Moreover, bench pressing entails significant risks even using spotters, who may not be paying sufficient attention or who may simply not be able to react quickly enough if a barbell is dropped.
The prior art provides several different devices to reduce the occurrence of such accidents. As an example, some bench presses include two lower hooks located approximately one foot above the weight bench seat—one attached to each main upright support at the head of the bench. This ostensibly enables a fatigued person doing the bench press exercise to, with what strength remains, move the now too-heavy barbell backwards over the lifter's throat and face and onto the hooks in order to abandon the weight. This is plainly hazardous, especially when attempting one repetition with maximum weight. To alleviate this danger, U.S. Pat. No. 4,411,425 to Milner discloses a similar device but located over the lifter's abdomen rather than behind the head. This device, however, still presents safety risks as the barbell may drop on the lifter's abdomen or ribs if the lifter misses the support hooks.
Other examples of safety devices for bench presses abound. U.S. Pat. No. 5,989,164 to Kullman et al. (1999) shows a device that lifts the weight from the lifter's chest. While this device removes the weight from the lifter's chest, it utilizes cables that increase setup time and can cause increased or decreased resistance due to contact with the barbell. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 6,746,379 to Brawner discloses a complex hydraulic lift assist mechanism by which a user can kick a lever to engage a pair of hydraulically actuated lift arms to lift the barbell when the user's strength is insufficient to do so. This device, however, is of little use in the event that the lifter inadvertently drops the barbell on the lifter's face, neck, etc.
What is desired, therefore, is an improved apparatus capable of providing for the safety of a lifter engaging in a bench press training routine.
For a better understanding of the invention, and to show how the same may be carried into effect, reference will now be made, by way of example, to the accompanying drawings, in which:
Referring to
Preferably, the assembly 10 includes a pair of vertical supports 20a and 22b, respectively and a pair of horizontal supports 22a and 22b, respectively. The vertical supports 20a and 20b may preferably comprise planar members that may be positioned adjacent one of the supports 24 of the bench press that holds a barbell. In some uses, each of the vertical supports 20a and 20b may each be affixed to a respective support 24 by a bolt, a weld, or some other mechanism. The horizontal supports 22a and 22b may each extend generally horizontally away from a respective vertical support 20a or 20b. In a preferred embodiment, each of the horizontal supports 22a and 22b are each positioned at the base of a respective vertical support 20a or 20b, so that when assembled and positioned adjacent a bench press, each of the horizontal supports 22a and 22b rest on the ground. It should be understood, however, that in some embodiments, it may be possible that the horizontal supports 22a and 22b may not rest on the ground. Those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that, although
Referring to
Each chestguard member 18a, 18b preferably comprises a horizontal arm 30 supported by a strut 32. Preferably, the strut 32 is slidably received in a sleeve 34. Each of the strut 32 and the sleeve 34 have one or more of apertures 36 by which, in conjunction with a pin 38, may be used to adjust the height of the chestguard members 18a, 18b to an appropriate level for the individual lifter.
As those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate, the assembly 10 protects the head, the neck, and the chest of a lifter. In particular, the faceguard 16 protects the head and neck of a lifter while a barbell is raised from the bench press and moved to a lateral position over the lifter's chest, at which point the lower chestguard 18 protects the lifter's chest should the barbell be either dropped or should the lifter not have sufficient strength to raise the barbell back to a position at which the barbell may be returned to the supports of the bench press.
Preferably, each horizontal arm 30 of the chestguard member 18a, 18b is slidably engaged with a respective faceguard member 16a, 16b. This serves dual purposes. First, such sliding engagement facilitates adjustment of the chestguard 18 to an appropriate height for an individual lifter. Moreover, the slidable engagement between the chestguard 18 and the faceguard 16 inhibits a dropped barbell from falling between the faceguard and the chestguard to injure a lifter. For example, if the chestguard and faceguard were simply constructed as two adjacent members, it might be possible for a dropped barbell to slide forward off of the faceguard and forcibly separate the faceguard from the chestguard as it falls upon a lifter. This is not a trivial concern given the magnitude of the weight often lifted in a bench press. Thus, by slidably engaging the chestguard around the faceguard, there is no gap or opening between these two elements by which a barbell may fall between. Preferably, sliding engagement is achieved via an aperture 50 in the horizontal arm 30 through which the lower vertical segment 28 of the faceguard 16a, 16b is received.
In a preferred embodiment, the horizontal arm 30 includes a stop 40 to prevent a dropped barbell from rolling forward off of the chestguard. Also in a preferred embodiment, the assembly 10 includes a lateral brace member 42 that braces the chestguard members 18a and 18b against each other. The brace member 42 may comprise a crossbar 44 with sleeves 46 at either end. The sleeves 46 preferably each are sized to slide over the sleeves 34 of the chestguard 18a, 18b. Preferably, the horizontal arm 30 is shaped to extend beneath a bench 46 of the bench press 12.
Referring to
It will be appreciated that the invention is not restricted to the particular embodiment that has been described, and that variations may be made therein without departing from the scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims, as interpreted in accordance with principles of prevailing law, including the doctrine of equivalents or any other principle that enlarges the enforceable scope of a claim beyond its literal scope. Unless the context indicates otherwise, a reference in a claim to the number of instances of an element, be it a reference to one instance or more than one instance, requires at least the stated number of instances of the element but is not intended to exclude from the scope of the claim a structure or method having more instances of that element than stated. The word “comprise” or a derivative thereof, when used in a claim, is used in a nonexclusive sense that is not intended to exclude the presence of other elements or steps in a claimed structure or method.
