Patent Application
20190269960
The present disclosure relates to power lifting exercises, and particularly to a specialized strap system for use with barbells that help a user comfortably perform power lifting exercises such as deadlifts, good mornings, zercher squats, hip belt squats or the like by distributing weight across the user's back or shoulders.
Power lifting exercises mainly include a dead lift, a bench press, and a squat lift. The popularity of power lifting exercises (such as deadlifts, bench press, and squat lifts) and other exercises of like nature has grown over the years amongst users. The deadlift is a strength exercise that works several muscle groups in upper and lower body of a user, including back, glutes and legs. The good morning exercise is simple move that activates the user's core, hamstrings and glutes. Likewise, the squat lifts such as zercher squats build traps, strengthen abs, increase glute and quad activation, and even work biceps of the user, while the squat lifts such as hip belt squats work the legs of the user without putting any stress on the lower back.
The dramatic increase in the popularity of the power lifting exercises has also brought a concomitant rise in injuries in the users. For example, the squat exercise in which the user places the barbell across his shoulders, steps forward from the rack, and squats until his thighs are parallel to the floor. In this exercise, because the barbell rests on the user's shoulders user can't merely drop it aside if the user is unable to make the lift. If the user tries to do that, such act may lead to an injury to the arms of the user. Likewise, other forms of the power lifting exercises or exercises of like nature discussed above can also lead to different injuries in users specially injuries related to arms of the user. The injured users often have to wait for them to fully recover before they can once again continue to exercise. Often a times, these injuries can take a long time to heal.
Further, exercise particularly, the hip belt squats which is one of most loved exercises is usually performed in gyms and recreation facilities using specially designed hip belt squat machines. The costs for such hip belt squat machines is very high, and thus the gyms and recreation facilities charge higher fees to the users to allow them to perform such workouts/exercise.
In the past, strap systems are proposed, however setting up the strap systems available in the prior art require use of additional weight discs with the shaft of barbells to prevent sliding of the straps or chains that connect the barbell shaft to the strap system. Such additional requisite of using additional weight discs can be awkward for the user, also the user/lifter must make sure they have small enough discs available with them prior to performing intended exercises. Also, adding the weight discs would also add weight to the overall weight of the barbell while performing the intended exercises, which may not always be desirable by the user.
Further, in the past, a prior art discloses a belt that secures to the user's/lifter's waist area. The belt facilitates attachment of two straps, one to the front of the belt, and the other to the back of the belt. The straps are then attached to two ends of the shaft of the barbell, such that the barbell is balanced in a central position at the lifter's center of gravity. The barbell can then be suspended from the belt, while the belt is attached to the lifter. Although, this proposed solution in the past allows the lifter to perform hip belt squats. The problem with this solution is that the lifter/user has to keep adjusting the straps until they are in the correct location to balance the barbell. Further, the use of such existing belt and strap system is limited to performing only hip belt squats.
To overcome aforementioned problems, the present invention tends to provide a strap system for use with barbells that the user can comfortably use to perform the power lifting exercises even in the cases when the user is suffering from an injury related to his/her arms. This is achieved by the proposed strap system by distributing weight across the user's back or shoulders. Besides this, the proposed strap system also acts an alternative and cost effective solution to perform hip belt squats along with other exercises.
Present invention provides a specialized strap system for use with barbell that help a user perform power lifting exercises such as deadlifts, good mornings, zercher squats or the like by distributing weight across the user's back or shoulders. The weight distribution across the user's back or shoulder's makes the present invention a useful tool for performing power lifting exercises particularly for the users who might be undergoing some injuries or may have disabilities related to arms.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a specialized strap system for use with barbells, that a user can use as an alternative and cost effective solution for performing a hip belt squat exercise which is usually performed using various hip belt squat machines known in the art.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a specialized strap system for use with barbells that may act as a safety system for the beginners performing deadlifts, good mornings and squat lifts.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide a specialized strap system for use with barbells that is length adjustable in nature. Particularly, allows the user to increase or decrease overall length of the strap system. This is achieved by increasing or decreasing the length of connecting assemblies that connect two ends of the strap to ends of the two sleeves of the barbells. This length adjustability may be desired by the users based on the build of user's body and/or type of exercises the user wish to perform.
According to an aspect of the present invention there is provided a specialized strap system for use with a barbell. The strap system includes a flat elongated flexible body having a top surface, a bottom surface, a first end, and a second end, wherein the first end having a first loop, and the second end having a second loop, and wherein the flat elongated flexible body further having a third loop configured parallel to the first and second loops in a midway along the length of the flat elongated flexible body over the top surface thereof; a first connecting assembly that connects the first loop at the first end of the flat elongated flexible body to one end of the barbell; a second connecting assembly that connects the second loop at the second end of the flat elongated flexible body to another end of the barbell; and wherein, upon connecting the first loop and second loop of the flat elongated flexible body of the strap system to respective ends of the barbell, a user can lift the barbell using the specialized strap system either on the user's back or shoulders, or on the user's waist region using a dipping belt to perform one or more exercises.
According to the same aspect of the present invention, the first connecting assembly, and the second connecting assembly both includes a first ring sewn inside the first loop and the second loop; a first chain including a plurality of eyelets and having a second ring connected thereto at its one end, wherein the second ring is configured to slide over a barbell sleeve and get locked thereon about a lip on a shaft of the barbell; and a first carbine hook that connect the first ring to the second ring by selective engagement with the plurality of the eyelets.
According to the same aspect of the present invention, the first ring has a triangular shape or D shape. The second ring is an O ring. The first ring, the first chain, and the first carbine hook are made of metal. Further, the plurality of eyelets of the first chain has a rectangular shape with rounded edges or oval shape. Furthermore, the selective engagement of the first carbine hook with the plurality of the eyelets of the first chain facilitates in overall length adjustment of the specialized strap system.
According to another aspect of the present invention, both of the first connecting assembly and the second connecting assembly of the strap system include a second carbine hook; a third carbine hook; and a second chain with a set of eyelets, wherein the second chain is looped and secured on the barbell sleeve using the second carbine hook, and thereafter the second chain is passed through the first loop or the second loop of the flat elongated flexible body, and looped back around and secured to a portion of the second chain using the third carbine hook.
These and other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the detailed description below, in light of the accompanying drawings.
The foregoing summary, as well as the following detailed description of preferred embodiments, is better understood when read in conjunction with the appended drawings. There is shown in the drawings example embodiments, however, the application is not limited to the specific system and method disclosed in the drawings.
As used in the specification and claims, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” include plural references unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. The words “comprising,” “having,” “containing,” and “including,” and other forms thereof, are intended to be equivalent in meaning and be open ended in that an item or items following any one of these words is not meant to be an exhaustive listing of such item or items, or meant to be limited to only the listed item or items. Those with ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and are not necessarily drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated, relative to other elements, in order to improve the understanding of the present invention. References to “one embodiment”, “an embodiment”, “another embodiment”, “an example”, “another example”, “some embodiment”, “an aspect”, “another aspect” and so on, indicate that the embodiment(s) or example(s) or aspect(s) so described may include a particular feature, structure, characteristic, property, element, or limitation, but that not every embodiment or example necessarily includes that particular feature, structure, characteristic, property, element or limitation. Unless stated otherwise, terms such as “first”, “second”, “third”, are used to arbitrarily distinguish between the elements such terms describe. Thus, these terms are not necessarily intended to indicate temporal or other prioritization of such elements.
Before describing the present invention in detail, it should be observed that the present invention utilizes a combination of components which constitutes a specialized strap system for use with barbells for performing different power listing exercises or exercises of like nature. Accordingly, the components, their interconnectivity and operation have been represented, showing only specific details that are pertinent for an understanding of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those with ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.
As required, detailed embodiments of the present invention are disclosed herein; however, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the invention, which can be embodied in various forms. Therefore, specific structural and functional details disclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as a basis for the claims and as a representative basis for teaching one skilled in the art to variously employ the present invention in virtually any appropriately detailed structure. Further, the terms and phrases used herein are not intended to be limiting but rather to provide an understandable description of the invention.
The specialized strap system for use with barbells that help a user comfortably perform power lifting exercises such as deadlifts, good mornings, zercher squats, hip belt squats or the like by distributing weight across the user's back or shoulders will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings
Referring to
As shown in
Attention should be drawn to
The first connecting assembly 104a and the second connecting assembly 104b further includes a first carbine hook 112. The carbine hook 112 connects the first ring 106 present in the loops 102c, 102d of the body 102 to the second ring 110 configured at one end of the chain 108. In order to facilitate the connection between the first ring 106 and the second ring 110 of the chain 108, the carbine hook 112 may be selectively engaged to the plurality of the eyelets 108a. This selective engagement helps in adjusting the overall length of the strap system 100. The term “overall length” in the context of present invention means the length of the flat elongated flexible body 102 together with the length of the first and second connecting assembly 104a, 104b. In the embodiment, the length of the first and second connecting assembly 104a, 104b (that includes the ring 106, the first chain 108 and the ring 110) may range from 260 mm to 1090 mm. The first ring 106, the first chain 108, and the first carbine hook 112 are made of metal preferably but not limited to stainless steel.
The selective engagement of the carbine hook 112 with the plurality of the eyelets 108a of the chain is shown in
Referring to
Referring to
Referring to
The user 702 is able to use the strap system 100 to perform hip belt squats using the loop 102e centrally configured on the body 102 of the strap system 100. Further, in order to perform hip belt squats using the proposed strap system 100, the user 702 can use a dipping belt or any other similar belts or strap 706 that can connect user's waist region to the central loop or loop 102e of the strap system 100. According to the embodiment, the loop 102e is configured large enough to allow one end of a fastening chain 704 (connected to an end of the dipping belt 706) wearable by the user 702 to be pulled therethrough and connect to other end of the dipping belt 706. Once the strap system 100 is assembled on the barbell 200 and the dipping belt 706 is connected to the loop 102e as described above, the barbell 200 can then be suspended using the strap system 100 as shown. When suspended, the barbell 200 would be centrally balanced, if the lifter/user has properly setup the distance between the two connecting assembly 104a, 104b from the shaft 202 to the loops 102c, 102d on either end. This distance has to be equal for the barbell 200 to centrally balance. Once the barbell 200 is centrally balanced by the user 702 and then the user can perform the hip belt squats as shown in
Referring to
In operation, the chain 806 is looped and secured on the barbell sleeve 204 or a bar using the carbine hook 802 (as seen in
The user can comfortably use the proposed strap system 800 to perform all the exercises discussed above. As an example,
The strap system of the present invention described above including associated components thereof (such as hooks, chains with eyelets, rings etc) may be made using suitable materials such as nylon, polyester, metals, nylon straps or any other material or any combinations thereof and in variety of dimensions or sizes as needed. Also, the sizes/length of the chains (with eyelets) as described and shown herein are merely exemplary, a person ordinary skilled in the art should note that the chain lengths can be increased or decreased by in more eyelets to the chain or removing eyelets from the chains. Further, the proposed strap system though best works with Olympic barbells, it should be understood that, it can be used with any other barbells or bars by incorporating suitable design changes.
Although particular embodiments of the invention have been described in detail for purposes of illustration, various modifications and enhancements may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
This patent application claims the benefit of priority of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/675,499, entitled “STRAP THAT SECURES TO BARBELL TO ALLOW ADDITIONAL EXERCISES TO BE PERFORMED,” filed May 23, 2018, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62675499 | May 2018 | US |
