DETAILED DESCRIPTION Briefly, and in general terms, the present invention provides a new and improved apparatus for measuring and displaying power generated by a person who is performing a physical activity.
More specifically, the apparatus senses and measures the motion of a mass such person is moving and/or working against, by deriving position, velocity, acceleration, calculating power, and displaying one or more such values by means of a display screen.
The present invention may be incorporated in any number of physical training devices including free weights and universal gym equipment.
The apparatus will be utilized in situations where the power generated by a person performing physical activity is desired to be known.
Such situations may include, but are not limited to, athletic weight training, sports medicine, body building, power lifting training, personal physical evaluation, physical rehabilitation, and personal fitness exercise.
In general terms, the apparatus of the present invention consists of a sensor/transducer that generates a signal as a function of the position of a weight being lifted by the user.
Such signal is then transmitted to a computer where the power needed to achieve a sensed change in position is calculated.
The calculated value is then displayed to the user.
Examples of a sensor/transducers adaptable to the present invention include but are not limited to cable extension potentiometers, accelerometers, linear velocity transducers (LVT), linear variable differential transformers (LVDT), ultrasonic, microwave, infrared, laser, magnetic, video and/or radio frequency position, velocity, and/or acceleration sensor/transducers.
The output may be in the form of analog and/or digital data.
Examples of the computer used to convert the sensor/transducer signal into meaningful information may include, but are not limited to, dedicated single purpose digital computers, general multipurpose digital computers, operational amplifier-based analog computers, hybrid analog/digital computational circuits, and/or digital signal processors (DSP)
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Exercise Devices 
