Appeal No. 98-2352
Application 08/245,870
somewhere adjacent the mid-back region and would require further
leaning in a rearward direction to engage the cushion. Additionally, the
pivot would be dangerously out of position and such imaginative misuse
of the Rockwell device would likely result in injury. Such is not the
substance of obviousness” (brief, page 12).
Each of the claims on appeal is directed to an apparatus for exercising the lower
back muscles of a user (specifically, the muscles of the spinae erector group) and
sets forth a lever means mounted to the frame in a disposition for engagement with
the upper back of a user for backward and forward user-induced movement of the
lever means for exercise of the user’s lower back muscles. As has been emphasized
in the specification, it is important to appellants that the user be positioned on the
apparatus such that the muscles of the lower back of the user can be exercised in
isolation and with the user’s gluteus maximus and hamstrings in a relaxed condition.
To this end, the apparatus includes means mounted to the frame for resisting forward
movement of the user’s hips to direct the user’s gluteus maximus muscles to a relaxed
condition and means mounted to the frame for maintaining the user’s knees in a
flexed or bent condition for directing the user’s hamstring muscles to a relaxed
condition while the lower back muscles undergo conditioning exercise.
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