Patent: Method for Preparing a Customized Exercise Strategy

It seems like we have forgotten to pamper our health! Time is precious and we are running behind money and other materialistic pleasures in life forgetting the fact that all these can exist only if we remain healthy. Overburdened daily routine and inappropriate lifestyle schedules have prevented most of us from involving ourselves in physical activity and exercises that can help us stay healthy and fit. We are leading a sedentary life, eating more processed foods and failing to exercise that has put us on an obesity epidemic of a plethora of diseases that result from such sedentary behavior. We are now left with no choice but to practice our basics of a healthy life-eat nutritious foods, exercise regularly and lead an active lifestyle. The first three letters of fitness, ‘FIT’ depicting frequency, intensity and time exist as basic principles which when applied to any physical activity gets converted to exercise. Sadly, fitness and physical activity are generally associated only with weight control, weight loss or obesity/overweight-related issues these days and fitness centers, gyms and health institutions prepare an exercise prescription based on the body composition of a person that includes fat ratio, water ratio and fat-free mass. Most of the exercise prescriptions are prepared without taking into account the risk factors (whether the person is sedentary or not, has a habit of smoking or not, family history of hyperlipidemia, hypertension, diabetes or obesity history) and the fitness components that relate to the actual health of the person (muscular strength, cardiovascular endurance and muscular flexibility).

The fitness exercise prescriptions prepared the traditional way don’t take into account the importance, ranking, intensity and ratio of the time spent for improving each component in comparison to total time of exercise. Also, such traditional exercise prescriptions insist on implementing exercises of cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength and muscular flexibility without any definite target in mind. The invention patented here solves all the insufficiencies/drawbacks of the traditional methods and improves exercise prescription methods thereby preparing and monitoring an exercise strategy and prescription.

Exercise is suitable for everyone but not all exercises are suitable for all kinds of people. One of the main objectives of this invention is to avoid including wrong exercises, prevent injury or unexpected deaths and to consider all fitness components before being prepared by the fitness instructor and given to the respective person who intensely wishes to become fit and healthy. The invention also ensures to prepare the most beneficial exercises and include a strategy of right and healthy exercises according to the person’s physical components. The invention here comes up with methods for preparing and monitoring a customized exercise strategy and prescription based on scientific and concrete data once the measurable fitness components that foresee the health of the individual are readily available in hand. The fitness components might include cardiovascular endurance component, muscle strength component, components of muscular flexibility and body composition by means of measurement devices to improve each fitness component of a person. Fitness score for each component, total fitness score based on all the components together and a fitness map by using specific calculations is done. The ratio of every component is analyzed and the biggest ratio is given to cardiovascular endurance component, the second biggest ratio is given to muscular strength component, the third biggest ratio is given to body composition and the fourth biggest ratio is given to muscular flexibility. An exercise strategy is planned based on this ratio dividing the timings between Cardio, Strength and Flexibility strategy. An exercise session is planned that helps to improve the person’s fitness components when the above rules are applied. The exercise strategy, exercise duration and scope are designed based on how much time and how frequently the person is willing to exercise every week.

The strength component is further divided into three sub-components: lower extremity strength, upper extremity strength and trunk strength. In total we get six fitness components that includes body composition too. The fitness map is created by figuring out component ratios and filling the map with these ratios. Exercise strategy is prepared and the scope of exercise is identified depending on the exercise frequency and time after identifying the type of strategy. The three main components (cardiovascular endurance exercise, muscular strength exercise and flexibility exercise) are arranged in an order of priority with respect to the importance of their effect on health. Cardiovascular fitness takes up 40% ratio in the fitness map sketching the largest proportion for itself in the exercise strategy. The patent was published on May 7th, 2015 and for more information on the patent please visit any of the following sites:

United States Patent & Treaty Office: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=222&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&p=5&S1=((health+AND+exercise)+AND+fitness)&OS=health+AND+exercise+AND+fitness&RS=((health+AND+exercise)+AND+fitness)

European Patent Office: https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?DB=EPODOC&II=0&ND=3&adjacent=true&locale=en_EP&FT=D&date=20160929&CC=US&NR=2016283695A1&KC=A1
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World Intellectual Property Organization: https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2015065298&_cid=P11-JZE2LN-01624-1