Patent Application
20060252610
This invention relates to vibrating exercise devices, and in particular to the attachment of a vibrating unit to an existing exercise device.
Loss of bone density and slow healing of broken bones becomes a serious problem as people age. It is well known that exercise can slow down this process or prevent it from occurring. It also is becoming apparent that being exposed to vibration at specific frequency and amplitude ranges while exercising will increase the effectiveness of the exercise in this regard. As a result it is now becoming common to equip exercise devices with vibration units. However, vibration equipped exercise devices are expensive, particularly when someone already has a comparable device that is not vibration equipped.
The subject invention overcomes this by providing a vibration unit that can be attached to an existing exercise device and a method of doing this. The vibration unit is attached to one side of a plate and an adhesive is placed on the other side of the plate. The adhesive is protected until the vibration unit is ready to be attached to the exercise device. When it is desired to attach the vibration unit to the exercise device, the protection is removed from the adhesive and the plate is attached to a mating surface on the exercise device.
The foregoing and other objectives, features, and advantages of the invention will be more readily understood upon consideration of the following detailed description of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
Referring now to
In the embodiment illustrated in the drawings, the plate 12 is flat, but it could have many other shapes as well, depending on the shape of the surface the plate will be attached to. The exercise unit illustrated has four projecting lugs 14 with openings 16 extending through them. Bolts 18 extend through the openings in the lugs into threaded holes 20 in the plate to attach the vibration unit to the plate. In another embodiment, shown in
Located on the other side of the plate 12 is an adhesive coating. In the embodiment illustrated the adhesive coating is a piece of double-sided tape 26 which is attached to the plate 12. The side of the tape 26 facing away from the vibration unit is protected so that it will not adhere to something it comes into contact with until it is desired to attach the vibration unit to an exercise device. With the double back tape illustrated in the drawings the protection is a removable sheet 28. Ways of providing an adhesive surface on the outer side of the plate 12 other than double back tape could be used. A spray-on adhesive is an example. While the removable sheet 24 shown in the drawings is not required, some way must be provided to temporarily protect the adhesive until the vibration unit is attached to an exercise device.
The vibration unit is easily attached to an exercise device by removing the sheet 28 from the double-back tape, or otherwise exposing the adhesive if double-back tape with a removable sheet is not used. The plate is then placed on a suitable surface 30 on the exercise device and the vibration unit is pushed toward the exercise device to adhere the adhesive to the surface 30. The best adhesion will occur when the plate 12 has the same shape as the surface 30 it is attached to, however, having conforming shapes is not essential.
The terms and expressions which have been employed in the foregoing specification are used therein as terms of description and not of limitation, and there is no intention in the use of such terms and expressions of excluding equivalents of the features shown and described or portions thereof, it being recognized that the scope of the invention is defined and limited only by the claims which follow.
