The present invention relates to a universal ergometer adapted for exercising and imitating both canoeing and kayaking on the land.

There are several types of sport equipment for exercising canoeing, kayaking or rowing sports on the land. The machines suitable for exercising and imitating canoeing, kayaking or rowing sports are collectively called ergometers. A common feature of the ergometers is that the athlete drives a unit, which imitates water resistance, by means of a rope affixed to one end or both ends of a paddle. Typically, this unit is an air fan wheel pivotably coupled to a main shaft driven by the rope. The mechanical resistance, however, can be generated using other principles as well, including magnetic field, belt-fastener braking, flywheel, and blade wheel with liquid container.

The stroke resistance mechanism is always arranged on a rotary shaft driven by free pulleys also arranged on the shaft, said pulleys having bearings. The rope, which is affixed to one end or both ends of the paddle, runs around the free pulleys of the main shaft. The rope looped around the free pulleys of the main shaft rotate the main shaft of the stroke resistance mechanism while the paddle is being moved.

In case of canoe-type movement, the rope is affixed to one end of the paddle, namely to the lower end thereof during use. A common, widely used canoetype rope system is schematically illustrated in Figure 1.

In this rope system, the left-sided and right-sided drives are independent of each other. When the paddle 10 with a hand grip is drawn in the direction indicated by the arrow A or B, the drawing rope 11 causes the air fan wheel 13 to rotate by means of the free-running driving pulley 12. So as to set the lower end of the paddle 10 into its initial position after a stroke in the fastest possible way and with requiring the least possible power from the athlete, a respective bungee cord 14 is arranged on either side of the air fan wheel 13, wherein the bungee cord 14 is affixed to the respective drawing rope 11 through a coupling element 15. Upon stroke the bungee cord 14 stretches in the directions indicated by the arrows C and D, and after completing the stroke, the bungee cord 14 pulls back the stretched drawing rope 11 with a significant force in the direction indicated by the arrows C, D so that the drawing rope 11 be tense again in the initial position of the paddle 10.

Since the longest stroke of a canoeist may achieve even 3 meters, the drawing rope 11, which is kept in a tense state by the bungee cord 14, should be capable of stretching by up to 3 meters. To this and, a typical bungee cord having an approximately 25% extension rate should have a total length of 12 meters. In order to reduce the length of the ergometer, the drawing rope 11 and/or the bungee cord 14 is looped back and forth over some additional pulleys. Stretching of the bungee cords is hardly affected by their looping around the pulleys.

A canoe ergometer using the canoe-type rope system shown in Figure 1 is disclosed, for example, in the document CA 3033135 Al.

Although the canoe-type rope system shown in Figure 1 could, in principle, be used also for exercising kayak movements because the two sides can work independently, and the ends of the drawing ropes could be affixed to the ends of the paddle, it is not used for the indoor exercise of kayaking because the intensive withdrawing effect of the bungee cord has an adverse effect to the kayak movements. A rope system, in particular for kayak ergometers, is schematically illustrated in Figure 2. In case of kayak movements, the drawing rope 21 is affixed to both ends of the paddle 20 since a kayakers strokes on two sides. In this case, however, the function of the bungee cord 25 is not to withdraw the drawing rope 21 affixed to the ends of the paddle, rather to provide the stroke with a slight flexibility and to keep the drawing rope 21 in a tense state continuously during use. In a kayak-type rope system, the drawing rope 21 starting from one end of the paddle 20 first runs over a pulley 23 driving the main shaft 22, and then travels further to a swing pulley 24, where it returns and runs further on the other side of the kayak ergometer up to the other end of the paddle 20 in the same manner. The length of the drawing rope 21 is fixed. Due to the above arrangement and the fixed length of the drawing rope, when one hand strokes, the entire length of the rope increases on that side and obviously decreases on the other side to the same extent. The swing pulley 24 functions to reverse the drawing rope to the other side, and to allow the two hands to work against each other. The longitudinal position of the swing pulley 24 along the direction indicated by the arrow C is determined by the fact that it is tensed by the drawing rope 21 in one direction, while being hold by the counter-acting bungee cord 25 in the opposite direction, wherein the bungee cord preferably has an adjustable length. The bungee cord 25 only stretches to the extent that the two ends of the paddle 20 displaces asymmetrically in the opposite directions. During paddling, the swing pulley 24 moves back and forth in a continuously tensed state between a substantially stretch-free (in general, slightly tensed) length of the bungee cord 25 and its stretched length caused by the asymmetric displacement of the two ends of the paddle 20. The name of the swing pulley 24 comes from this swinging motion. The drawing rope 21 may also be directed along additional pulleys between the end of the paddle's end and the pulley 23 of the main shaft 22 in order to appropriately direct and guide the drawing rope 21.

The swing pulley arrangement shown in Figure 2 has the drawback that because of the gravitation, the swing pulley 24 has a relatively large vertical amplitude during use, and therefore the tension of the bungee cord 25 does not vary uniformly/harmonically during swinging, which exerts a disturbing effect to the athlete. In a worse case, the drawing rope 21 may fall from the swing pulley 24, which causes the operation to cease. It is another drawback that this rope system is not suitable for exercising canoeing at all.

The kayak-type rope system shown in Figure 2 is used, among others, in the kayak ergometer Stroke2Max (https://stroke2max.com).

It is an object of the present invention to provide a universal paddling apparatus (ergometer) that can be used by both kayakers and canoeists, and that is adapted to strokes of the length of up to 3 meters on both sides independently. A further object is to keep the particular advantage of the kayak-type rope system, namely, the stroke is not distorted by the forced withdrawal of the bungee cord (i.e. the bungee cord does not pull back the hand of the kayakers), while the swing pulley does not swing at all or swings only to a negligible extent in the vertical direction during its back-and-forth motion.

The invention is based on the idea that by combining the kayak-type solution including a swing pulley and the side-independent canoe-type solution, in which the bungee cord is pulled back, a universal ergometer can be provided. The combination of the two solutions can be achieved by guiding the bungee cord, which is required for the canoeing movements, through the swing pulley, and therefore a single bungee cord is enough for the left-sided and right-sided strokes. The length of the bungee cord is adjusted so that in case of the longer canoe strokes, it allows enough elongation to provide the usual withdrawing force, whereas in case of the shorter double-sided kayak strokes, the bungee cord gives only a slight flexibility to the stroke without further effects. The bungee cord having the required size, i.e. with substantial length, may be arranged within a generally limited space volume having a length of ca. 1 meter available in the support platform, in a manner that before the bungee cord arrives at the swing pulley, it is guided by pulleys back and forth several times between the two ends of the support platform.

So that the limited running path, which has a typical length of ca. 1-1,5 meter available for the swing pulley within the support platform, for example under the horizontal bench, be enough for drawing a rope of a length of even 3 meters, the swing pulley has been altered into a swing carriage with the drawing rope running over two pulleys instead of a single pulley as used before. The drawing rope, which is coming from the driving pulley of one side, returns at one of the pulleys of the swing carriage and then travels towards a reversing pulley arranged at the head of the bench. After returning around the reversing pulley, the rope runs over the other pulley of the swing carriage and travels further towards the driving pulley of the other side. Thus the extension of the rope between the pulleys of the swing carriage and the reversing pulleys arranged at the head of the bench is only one-fourth of the entire length of the rope under the bench because the entire length of a stroke is distributed to multiple rope sections between the pulleys. Thus a canoe stroke of even 3 meters results in an oscillation of less than 1 meter for the swing carriage.

The above objects are achieved by providing a universal ergometer comprising a support frame, a seat and/or a footrest mounted on the support frame, a paddle, a stroke resistance mechanism and a rope system coupled to either end or both ends of said paddle, wherein the rope system includes an inelastic drawing rope, an elastic bungee cord and a plurality of pulleys for guiding said rope and cord, wherein the drawing rope and the bungee cord are connected to each other. The rope system comprises a swing carriage with at least two pulleys mounted thereon for looping said drawing rope, and wherein the bungee cord is coupled to said swing carriage at at least two points. The bungee cord is guided over at least one front pulley arranged ahead of the swing carriage and having a horizontal axis, as well as over at least one rear pulley arranged behind the swing carriage and also having a horizontal axis, so that the swing carriage is arranged between the upper and lower sections of the bungee cord, and wherein the swing carriage can move horizontally, in the longitudinal direction between the front and rear pulleys.

The preferred embodiments of the universal ergometer according to the invention are defined by the dependent claims.

The universal ergometer according to the present invention will now be described in more detail with reference to the drawings, in which:

- Figure 1 schematically illustrates a known canoe-type rope system;

- Figure 2 schematically illustrates a known kayak-type rope system;

- Figure 3 is a schematic side view of a rope system used in a preferred embodiment of the universal ergometer according to the present invention;

- Figure 4 is a top plan view of the rope system shown in Figure 3;

- Figure 5 is a perspective view of the three-dimensional arrangement of the swing carriage in the rope system shown in Figure 3. Figures 3 and 4 show a rope system used in a preferred embodiment of the universal paddling apparatus (ergometer) according to the present invention, in a schematic side view (Fig. 3) and in a top plan view (Fig 4.). In these figures, the like elements are indicated by the like reference numerals.

The rope system illustrated in Figures 3 and 4 is adapted for exercising kayak movements. Accordingly, both ends of the drawing rope 30 is affixed to the paddle 32, that is, the right-sided end of the rope is affixed to the right-sided end of the paddle 32 and the left-sided end of the rope is affixed to the leftsided end of the paddle 32. In case of the canoe-type use of the ergometer, the difference is only that just one end of the drawing rope 30 is affixed to one end of the paddle 32, whereas the other free end of the drawing rope 30 is fastened to the support platform of the ergometer.

The running path of the drawing rope 30 will now be described from starting on the right side of the ergometer. The drawing rope 30 is first guided over a high- end pulley 34a at the head of the ergometer, from where the drawing rope 30 is forwarded to the right-sided driving pulley 36a of the stroke resistance mechanism, for example an air fan wheel 35. In one embodiment wherein the air fan wheel 35 is arranged at a higher position, the pulley 34a may be omitted.

From the right-sided driving pulley 36a, the drawing rope 30 preferably runs over a right-sided inner reversing pulley 38a that is configured to position the drawing rope 30 to the height of the swing carriage 40. When the driving pulley 36a is arranged at a height where the drawing rope 30 leaves it at the height of the swing carriage 40, the inner reversing pulley 38a may be omitted.

A drawing rope 30 then runs around a rear reversing pulley 42a mounted on the swing carriage 40, and preferably runs further to a separate central reversing pulley 44. After leaving the central reversing pulley 44, the drawing rope 30 takes the same path on the left side using the respective left-sided pulleys, i.e. the left-sided rear reversing pulley 42b mounted on the swing carriage 40, the optional left-sided inner reversing pulley 38b, the left-sided driving pulley 36b and the optional left-sided pulley 34b. The use of the central reversing pulley 44 has the advantage that due to its interposition, the length of the swinging path of the swing carriage 40 may be reduced to the half.

The two ends 59a, 59b of the bungee cord 50 are fastened to the support platform of the ergometer. In a preferred embodiment of the ergometer according to the invention, the ends of the bungee cord 50 are releasably fastened to the support platform of the ergometer and they can be fixed at various positions, for example by means of a carabiner or a hook, so the initial tension of the bungee cord 50 can be adjusted to various levels.

The bungee cord 50 is guided on the right side around at least one rear reversing pulley 52a having a horizontal axis (e.g. three pulleys in the embodiment shown in the drawings), and on the opposite side of the swing carriage 40, at least one front reversing pulley 54a having a horizontal axis (e.g. two pulleys in the embodiment shown in the drawings). From the last reversing pulley (in the present case, the right-sided outer reversing pulley 52a), the bungee cord 50 is directed to the right-sided guiding pulley 56a in order to position the bungee cord 50 at the height level of the swing carriage 40. From the guiding pulley 56a, the bungee cord 50 is further directed to the swing carriage 40 on which it is fixed at one or two points, or as shown in Figures 3 to 5, it is guided over the right-sided bungee cord reversing pulley 58a and the left-sided bungee cord reversing pulley 58b, both mounted on the swing carriage 40. In order to prevent the swing carriage 40 from pivoting around an axis parallel to the longitudinal direction of the ergometer, each of the drawing rope 30 and the bungee cord 50 is affixed to the swing carriage 40 at at least two points. Preferably, these fixing points reside in the same plane for the most possible balanced motion of the swing carriage 40.

After leaving the right-sided bungee cord reversing pulley 58a of the swing carriage 40, the bungee cord 50 runs along the same path on the left side over the respective left-sided pulleys, i.e. the left-sided rear reversing pulley 52b, the left-sided front reversing pulley 54b and the left-sided guiding pulley 56b, and it is finally fixed to the support platform.

The number and the arrangement of the front reversing pulleys 54a, 54b and the rear reversing pulleys 52a, 52b may be different from those depicted in the drawings, which depends on whether the bungee cord 50 is fixed ahead of or behind the swing carriage 40, on the one hand, and on the space volume available in the longitudinal direction within the ergometer, on the other hand.

It is preferred that the swing carriage 40 comprises at least one pulley for the drawing rope 30 (in the present case, the rear reversing pulleys 42a, 42b) and at least two pulleys for the bungee cord 50. The pulleys of the swing carriage 40 are mounted on a carrier plate of the swing carriage 40 in a fixed position with respect to each other. In the embodiment shown in Figures 3 and 4, the swing carriage 40 comprises two pulleys for each of the drawing rope 30 and the bungee cord 50. For the drawing rope 30, even more than two pulleys may be used on the swing carriage together with an appropriate number of (multiple) central reversing pulleys 44. In this case the swinging path of the swing carriage 40 may be further reduced. The number of the bungee cord reversing pulleys 58a, 58b belonging to the bungee cord 50 is preferably two, so the swing carriage 40 can be prevented from pivoting around its longitudinal axis as this pivotal would result in undesired force effects during the use of the ergometer. More than two bungee cord reversing pulleys may also be used on the swing carriage 40, but in this case, additional reversing pulleys might be necessary for the bungee cord 50.

As shown in Figure 5, an essential feature of the rope system of the ergometer according to the invention is that the plane of the swing carriage 40, which is defined by the ropes (namely, the drawing rope and the bungee cord) guided around the pulleys mounted on the swing carriage, resides between the bungee cord sections guided by the bungee cord reversing pulleys above and under the swing carriage, thus in case of a somewhat bigger vertical swing of the swing carriage 40, it bumps to the bungee cord 50, which results in a minimum noise. In the conventional ergometers, the swing pulley usually lashes to the proximal parts of the support platform upon the vertical swings of the swing pulley, which is accompanied by a significant and therefore disturbing sound effect.

Since during use the bungee cord 50 is slightly tensed in the initial position of the paddle 32, the swing carriage 40 is also in a tensed state in its initial position, which results in a negligible vertical swing for it. However, this minor initial tension of the bungee cord 50 has hardly any effect to the kayak strokes.

In addition to the above described rope system, the ergometer according to the present invention may further comprise a seat and/or footrest, or other rest elements, auxiliary benches (not shown in the drawings) mounted on the support frame for exercising various types of paddling techniques. The seat may be fixed (e.g. kayak), or it may slide along a rail (e.g. kielboat, rowing-boat, skull).

An advantage of the universal ergometer of the invention is that the swing carriage can move only in the desired direction, i.e. in the longitudinal direction, and its motion is harmonic because its vertical swing is negligible. During use of the ergometer, the possible vertical swing of the swing carriage due to the incorrect or excessive paddling movements causes a minimum noise since in such a case, the swing carriage can lash only to the upper or lower sections of the bungee cord, which, however, produces hardly any sound effect.

A further advantage of the ergometer according to the invention is that it is suitable for exercising both kayak and canoe movements, and even for exercising rowing (e.g. kielboat) when the seat is configured to slide. Another advantage of the invention is that with the drawing rope 30 guided back and forth around the rear reversing pulley 42 and around the oppositely arranged one or more central reversing pulleys 44 mounted on the swing carriage, the length of the path taken by the drawing rope upon pulling by the ends of the paddle outside the bench is reduced proportionally due to the use of multiple pulleys. Thus the rope system may require a rather small space, and the length of the path of the swing carriage 40 may be a fraction of the length of the path along which the paddle moves the rope outside the bench.