Method for measuring a user's cardiorespiratory endurance by a fitness equipment |
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申请号 | EP06000458.7 | 申请日 | 2006-01-11 | 公开(公告)号 | EP1808121B1 | 公开(公告)日 | 2009-09-23 |
申请人 | Wang, Leao; | 发明人 | Wang, Leao; | ||||
摘要 | |||||||
权利要求 | |||||||
说明书全文 | The invention relates to a method for measuring a user's cardiorespiratory endurance by a fitness equipment, and more particularly to a method for obtaining a reference value of the user's cardiorespiratory endurance by a general fitness equipment having a specific function, such that users can know about their physical conditions or use the reference value as a basis for further physical training. As we all know, the cardiorespiratory endurance is a major factor for determining our physical conditions, and thus knowing about one's cardiorespiratory functions and conditions by a popular fitness equipment and a simple procedure definitely can alert us about our health conditions and remind us to improve our physical conditions and further maintain our health. Similarly, the physical conditions absolutely affect the Overall performance of a professional athletic, and thus professional athletics are trained to improve their cardiorespiratory endurance, which such training is an important part for maintaining their professional performance. However, up to now, there is no fitness equipment having the foregoing function of measuring our cardiorespiratory endurance in a simple manner. Therefore, people regardless of the general public or professional athletics have to go to hospitals, related research institutes, or professional sport physiological laboratories for the physical examinations using expensive cardiorespiratory testing devices or related equipments. In addition to the costs, such arrangement also causes inconvenience to users. As to most users, they maintain their physical strength and functions by a so-called "progressive self training" and determine whether or not their physical strength and functions make improvements or breakthroughs by their subjective recognition and self-conscience. However, such subjective inspection is simply a conscious evaluation without strong supports by scientific data, and thus easily causing distortion or discrepancy. Since our cardiorespiratory endurance varies with many subjective and objective factors (such as the level of the examinee's physiological tiredness, psychological conditions, external environment, and climatic factors, etc). If there is no definite support of scientific data, the testing results will be questionable, and people will lose their benefits of having positive selftraining. Therefore, it is a primary object of the invention to provide an existing fitness equipment having a specific operating functions (such as the model that comes with a speed control meter and a built-in program for entering the user's age, and automatically calculating the optimal heartbeat rate, basic exercise safe heartbeat rate, and a heartbeat monitor) to operate with a simple mid-strength testing exercise procedure for effectively obtaining the best reliable reference value of the cardiorespiratory endurance, and further effectively maximizing the utility, value, and significance of the fitness equipment. To each user, regardless of professional athletics or general public, such fitness equipment can be used to provide the information about the user's physical function and conditions and assure the user's health conditions, so as to maintain and improve our cardiorespiratory endurance. A heart rate monitor device for use in monitoring aerobic exercises training is known from the as a fitness parameter. This document describes a monitoring device as prior art which is performed so that at the end of a twelve minute running period the fitness parameter is derived from a simple look-up table based on the distance covered in the twelve minutes. According to a referred embodiment of the document a heart rate is measured by a jogging-computer. One exercise comprises a slow rate period of three minutes and at faster cadences of three minutes. The maximal heart rate is calculated at 200 minus age. The exercises are performed with a maximal oxygen uptake of 60 - 80%. The maximal oxygen uptake (% VO2max) is calculated at values of a rest heart rate HRR and the maximal heart rate HRM by the formula: Another solution for measuring a fitness parameter using an ergometer is disclosed in the Therefore, the present invention mainly uses a fitness equipment such as an electric treadmill having a speed control meter panel and a heartbeat monitor to operate with the optimal human heartbeat rate (which is 60% - 90% of our maximum heartbeat rate), the basic exercise safe heartbeat rate (which is 40% - 60% of our maximum heartbeat rate) and a predetermined mid-strength testing exercise procedure for easily measuring the reference value of the cardiorespiratory endurance (also known as cardiorespiratory function) of a user at the time of the measurement, so as to provide the user a reference of physical conditions and a basis for future physical training and exercise. The accomplishment of this and other objects of the invention will become apparent from the following description and its accompanying drawings of which:
Before the testing method in accordance with the present invention is described, some of the terminologies used in this specification are explained first. Maximum Heartbeat Rate: It refers to the maximum heartbeat that a human body can "possibly" bear. At present, both medical and academic areas accept 220 times per minute as the maximum heartbeat rate. Optimal Heartbeat Rate: It is equal to the maximum heartbeat rate subtracted by the examinee's age and then multiplied by 60% - 90%. At present, both medical and academic areas accept such reference value as the optimal heartbeat rate. Basic Exercise Safe Heartbeat Rate: lt is equal to the maximum heartbeat rate subtracted by the examinee's age and then multiplied by 40% - 60%. At present, both medical and academic areas accept such reference value as the optimal heartbeat rate. Monitoring Meter Panel: It is an electronic meter panel for monitoring the exercise speed, distance, and related parameters of a fitness equipment, and capable of displaying the parameters on a specific window of the panel. Most of the present fitness equipments come with this device. Heartbeat Monitor: It is a device being in contact with an examinee for detecting the heartbeats of the examinee anytime, and capable of display the heartbeats on a specific window of the speed control meter panel. Most of the present fitness equipments come with this device. Cardiorespiratory Endurance Value (abbreviated as RSV HRC): The RSV HRC value finally measured by the method of the present invention is based on the optimal heartbeat rate as defined above (and the optimal heartbeat rate is used as the continuous load limit). Testing Exercise: lt could be the jogging exercise on a treadmill, pedaling exercise on a fitness bike, or simulated running exercise of an elliptical trainer, depending on the type of the fitness equipment. Now, referring to
Referring to The RSV HRC value equals to the distance difference multiplied by the sum of time differences and divided by the sum of squares of the time differences, as follows: Referring to The inventor of the present invention adopted the so-called "Basic Exercise Safe Heartbeat Rate" as the standard for measuring the heartbeat and constant exercise speed after the warm up, because the heartbeat value will increase and accelerate according to the level of exercise when a person is doing an aerobic exercise. Based on the safety factor, the present invention designs a "Safety Heartbeat Standard" to prevent an overload of the examinee's heartbeat. More particularly, such arrangement provides a protection for people whose cardiorespiratory function have been damaged seriously, elderly people, or people having a poor cardiorespiratory function. Let us take an examinee of age 20 and an examinee of age 60 for examples as follows: From the above expressions, examinees of different ages have a small difference between their basic exercise safe heartbeat rate values, and thus the present invention uses such difference as the standard for starting the measurements of heartbeats and constant exercise speeds. Further, the calculation of using positive and negative 20 times/minute is adopted to accurately distinguish the examinees with a special physical capability (either having a very good physical capability or having a very poor physical capability) to obtain a safer and gentler testing procedure. Further, the so-called "Mid-Strength Exercise" refers to a "Non-Exhausted Exercise" used for measuring the cardiorespiratory endurance reference value, primarily emphasizing on making this method applicable for each people who uses the fitness equipment, regardless of male, female, elderly, or youth. As described above, a more precise professional equipment or device is needed for measuring the actual cardiorespiratory endurance value of each examinee, and the examinee has to try very hard to exercise until his/her strength is exhausted before an accurate cardiorespiratory value can be obtained. Further, the same testing procedure must be repeated several times to obtain a more definite and truer testing data. However, most of the examinees do not have to go through such a violent and potentially dangerous testing procedure, but just want to have a general idea about their current physical conditions by using the fitness equipment. Furthermore, examinees should not do excessively violent exercises without being accompanied by professional trainers or medical personnel. Therefore, the testing procedure and a gentler mid-strength exercise in accordance with the present invention can assure the safety of the examinees. With the same testing procedure and RSV HRC formula, the present invention operates with different optimal heartbeat rate values, basic exercise safe heartbeat rate values, and exercise time (such as the standard of using 90% for the optimal heartbeat rate, 50% for the basic exercise safe heartbeat rate, and 15 minutes for the exercise time) to measure the RSV HRC reference value. However, the data or parameters used as the measuring standard for obtaining the best testing reference value relies on our actual practices, experiments, and verifications. Obviously, these standards will not affect the validity, usefulness, and convenience of the present invention. |