TITLE : GYMNIC AND REHABILITATIVE MACHINE.

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DESCRIPTION

The present invention relates to a gymnic and rehabilitation machine.

In particular, the invention relates to a gymnic machine which allows the user to apply a force by means of suitable means which can interact with a load. A possible well-known exercise called "squat" foresees that the athlete (and/or the person under rehabilitation treatment) keeps a load resting on his/her shoulders so that he/she can carry out a series of leg bends and that he/she usually bends his/her knees while he/she is bending his/her lower limbs. It is possible to execute this exercise both with free load tools, for example with a balancer, or with gymnic machines intended for this purpose. This type of exercise is effective for many athletes but it determines excessive friction onto the articular districts; this inconvenience manifests itself especially on subjects who are in the functional rehabilitation phase.

In fact, the exercise described above determines the synergic motion between the tibial segment and the femoral segment and produces cutting forces which can compromise the effectiveness of this exercise and can prove harmful. In other words, with this exercise, the load is moved along a rectilinear and vertical guide-way that coincides with the vertical reference axis of the person who is carrying out the exercise so as to determine a simultaneous roto- translation both from the hinge point defined by the knee and from the tibial and femoral portion of the limb which align along the vertical axis. In practice, in the existing machines, it is not possible to adequately separate the translation and rotation components of the knees, for example during the execution of exercises

which foresee the lifting, the lowering or the moving of a load in a linear manner.

The aim of the present invention is that of providing a machine capable of overcoming the above inconveniences. Thanks to the solution represented by the present invention, the load (which, initially, is off-axis) is brought onto the reference axis where the subject can easily support it. This gesture strongly limits friction on the knee articulation and on the ankle articulation. According to the invention, these results have been achieved by adopting the idea of a machine having the features described in claim 1. Further features are described in the dependent claims. Some of the advantages of the present invention are listed and described below:

With reference to the embodiment dedicated to the lower limbs (see Figs 1-4), the machine allows the correct training of muscles, in particular the so called "antigravitary type" of the lower limbs without causing excessive friction on the articulations and, above all, it limits the instantaneous variations of the cutting forces.

This possibility is provided both by the fact that the leg muscles operate in an isometric way and by the double closing of the kinetic chain built up by the whole body which, during its motion, is constrained to lie on the ground and it is also provided by the sliding guide for the overload which, in the example that has been shown, has a curvilinear shape that takes into account the physiological curve of the backbone so as to limit functional overload on human vertebral bodies. The tibial segment remains substantially motionless, in a position which is basically orthogonal to the ground and the angle at the ankle remains fixed without causing the heel to lift.

The particular shape of the sliding guide allows for support of the overload off the vertical axis so that the overload can subsequently be transported onto the axis itself and so that a pure rotation without sliding occurs on the articulation (absence of cutting forces) . In other words, the lifting does not occur in the same way as it does in well-known machines which foresee the lifting of the load by keeping the load itself on the vertical axis and by realigning the body segments "under" it. The machine allows the user to tram the mobility of the articulations involved in this effort in order to achieve beneficial effects for blood circulation by simulating some aspects of deambulation which foresees that the baricentre cyclically passes "over" the support point of the foot. The line perpendicular to the ground at the support point of the foot represents the axis with respect to which force couples annihilate each other and the machine subject of the present invention allows the transport of the load "over" the axis and not (as foreseen during the walk on the tapis roulant) to move the support point of the foot "under" the load with the consequent maintenance of the articulation balance. A further advantage offered by the present machine is the possibility of carrying out eccentric work without loading on the articulations. In practice, using the machine of the invention, it is possible not only executing the concentric work during the lifting of the load but also eccentric work determined by the corresponding lowering of the load itself obtained with a knee bend. In well-known machines, this solution is not possible because the load is moved along the vertical reference axis so an exercise which foresees a lowering with a knee bend using a load would be dangerous for articulations. Conventional machines which allow the operator to carry out "eccentric" work using an overload, generally

permit the execution of an open kinetic chain exercise; in this case, on the contrary, it is possible to execute exercises with overloads even in a closed kinetic chain. The above information about the execution of exercises for lower limbs is also valid for upper limbs- machines even if their sizes and positions are different. In practice, a correct handling among the segments of the lower limbs is obtained between the two portions of the upper limbs by using a curvilinear development guide which allows the operator to exert a force causing a variable motion with respect to the reference axis independently of its orientation.

Every technician who works in this field will better understand these advantages and further advantages and features of the present invention thanks to the following description and to the enclosed drawings as a practical exemplification of the present invention which should not be seen in a limitative sense, wherein:

Fig. 1 is a schematic perspective view of a possible embodiment of a machine according to the invention; - Figs. 2, 3, 4 show the example of Fig. 1 in a front, lateral and top plan view respectively;

-Figs. 5, 6 are two diagrams representing two phases of a squat exercise that has been carried out with a well-known machine; - Figs. 7, 8 show two diagrams which are analogous to those of Figs. 5 and 6 but they represent an exercise that has been carried out with a machine built according to the invention; -Fig. 9 is a schematic lateral view of a possible embodiment of a detail relative to a footboard. With reference to the enclosed drawings, a machine (1) according to the present invention comprises means (2) for allowing the user to apply a force and a load (3) mobile along a path under the action executed by the user by said means (2)

for applying the force.

According to the invention, the machine is characterized in that the guide-way followed by the load (3) is curvilinear and it foresees a trajectory which diverges from a rectilinear reference axis.

With reference to the illustrated example, the load (3) follows a non-rectilmear trajectory with an off axis starting point and only the final point is dislocated on the vertical axis which is aligned with the force of gravity. In other embodiments of the machine, said reference axis can be directed in a different way. In the illustrated example, the guide-way is defined by a curvilinear guide (4) . The machine comprises a structure (5) for fixing it to a wall or to another vertical support (P) and the guide (4) is so shaped that its upper portion (40) is farther from the wall and its lower portion (41) is nearer the wall (P) . A respective upper (62) and lower (61) bumper stops are foreseen in order to delimit the run of the load (3) along the guide (4) . The zone destined for the positioning onto the ground of the user's feet coincides with the lower end or base (42) of the guide (4), the user can put his/her feet onto the vertical projection of the handle (2) which is described below when it is in its upmost position. In particular, the guide (4) features a curved or inclined portion (40) whose bend or inclination is determined according to the purposes to be achieved through the squat exercise. It is possible to foresee connection elements or shims (55) to vary the height of the guide (4) according to the user. In practice, unlike traditional machines in which the load is guided along a rectilinear and vertical guide-way, according to the present invention, the trajectory followed by the load is not along a rectilinear axis; on the contrary, by using

different guide shapes, it is possible to obtain bidimensional or tridimensional guide- ways (in the plane and in the space) . With reference to the drawings, the load (3) , during its motion along the guide, moves with a varied motion (non rectilinear) both vertically (y- axis) and horizontally in the direction of its distancing or of its approaching to the wall (P) (x- axis) . As shown in the drawings, the load can consist of a carriage

(2) having a predetermined mass which slides along the guide (2) . In particular, the carriage (3) is provided with supports

(30) for housing one or more discs (31) which define the mass of the carriage. Moreover, a handle (2) for the user's hands is fixed to the carriage (3), being a headrest (20) foreseen at the centre of said handle which is destined for the zone of the user's nape.

Besides, the machine can be provided with a footboard (7) for the user's feet which is equipped with fixing means in the desired angulation so as to allow a stable positioning according to different angulations; the footboard is schematically represented in Fig.9 and can bend onto the sagittal axis can vary the horizontal support plane of the foot.

Figs. 5-8 schematically show that the machine of the present invention is different from a well- known machine. A well known machine (1' ) foresees a castle provided with two vertical guides (4' ) along which the user makes the load slide

(3) . The load follows a vertical trajectory which coincides with the reference axis. In a well- known machine, the knee (93) is submitted to a roto-translation in the zone where the load is moved and this may cause damaging effects. In fact, it is easy to guess that two simultaneous rotations of the tibial segment (92) with respect to the foot (91) and of the femoral segment (94) with respect to the tibial segment itself (91)

take place. When the load is pushed upwards (that is to say when it passes from the configuration of Fig. 5 to the configuration of Fig. 6) the knee (93) executes a translation, which is highlighted by an arrow (T) and the angles defined by the tibial segment (92) respectively with the femoral segment (94) and the foot (91) undergo simultaneous variations. In the machine subject of the present invention, instead, the angle the tibial segment (92) forms with the foot (91) remains fixed and basically equal to 90°. To execute an exercise, the user's feet are disposed at the vertical of the arrival point of the load at the end of the trajectory along the guide (4) and his/her hands are on the handle (2) of the load (3) which is adjacent to the lower bumper stop (61) of the guide (4). In this configuration, the load, which was initially off reference axis, has been brought onto the axis itself where it is supported and from where it is possible to bring it off axis again by lowering it along the guide which supports it during its motion without causing cutting efforts on the articulations and without a functional overload on the vertebral bodies.

The motion the user initially carries out (a motion upward and a motion for distancing the load from the wall or from the back support P) brings the load onto the reference axis, that is to say onto the support point of the feet. In other words, during the upward run (stroke) a sort of "realignment" of the load takes place with respect to the reference axis.

In the upward stroke of the load, the execution of the exercise can be defined as concentric, while in the return run the execution of the exercise will be eccentric. In this way, it is possible to obtain a motion which cannot be carried out in nature but said motion allows the creation of force couples in an "unnatural way", said forces allowing the rotation of

the articulation as "naturally" as possible without the excessive friction which may be caused by the cutting forces. This proves extremely useful in motion rehabilitation therapies . The execution details may equally vary as regards the shape, the size, the disposition of the elements and the kind of material that has been used within the solution idea that has been adopted and within the limits of the protection offered by the present patent.