Multipurpose gymnastic apparatus

A multipurpose gymnastic apparatus comprises a frame unit, a pulley unit, and a load carrying unit. The frame unit is composed of a ladder frame having a front end on which a dual-purpose pushing and rotating device is mounted, a chair set and a leg stretching device. The pulley unit comprises a plurality of independent ropes running through the pulleys and having free ends connected with the pushing and rotating device and the leg stretching device. The load carrying unit is capable of being lifted and lowered by the ropes. The pushing and rotating device comprises two wheel fitting members, two arresting pieces, and a protective rod. The ropes running on the two fitting members can be actuated by the two arresting pieces to permit a chest building exercise to be done while the ropes can be pressed against by the protective rod to permit an arm building exercise to be done.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
The present invention relates to a gymnastic apparatus, and more 
particularly to an improved multipurpose gymnastic apparatus. 
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
The multipurpose gymnastic apparatus of the prior art is mainly composed of 
a frame unit, a pulley unit, and a load carrying device. An arm building 
device is pivoted to the front end of an upper beam of a ladder frame of 
the frame unit while a chair unit is set up at the center of the upper 
beam. A leg-stretching device is pivoted to the front end of the chair 
unit. Located behind the ladder frame is a chest building device under 
which another chair unit is mounted. The pulley unit is mounted at the 
upper and the bottom portions of the frame unit. The load carrying device 
is disposed by the frame unit and can be raised by a rope running on the 
pulley unit. 
The prior art multipurpose gymnastic apparatus described above has a body 
of great size and weight and therefore takes up two much of the space. 
With a view to overcoming the shortcomings of the prior art multipurpose 
gymnastic apparatus described above, there are recently new multipurpose 
gymnastic apparatus that are disclosed in the Taiwanese Patent Numbers 
79214330 and 80206840. The apparatus disclosed in the Taiwanese Patent 
79214330 is characterized in that its arm building device can be easily 
converted into a chest building device by unfastening the two bolts so as 
to keep the baffle and the lifting-pressing bar apart. The apparatus 
disclosed in the Taiwanese Patent 80206840 has a feature that its arm 
building device is converted into a chest building device by unfastening 
the elongate bolt out of the slot of the baffle. As a result, the overall 
size of the multipurpose gymnastic apparatus of the above-identified 
patents is effectively reduced. However, such improved multipurpose 
gymnastic apparatus as described above are still limited in that the 
conversion of the arm building device into the chest building device can 
not be done quickly and easily by the user. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
It is therefore the primary objective of the present invention to provide a 
multipurpose gymnastic apparatus, which permits a user to do an arm 
building exercise or a chest building exercise without having to make any 
mechanical adjustment. 
The foregoing objective of the present invention will be better understood 
by studying the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment 
of the present invention in conjunction with the drawings provided 
herewith.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
Referring to FIGS. 1-5, a multipurpose gymnastic apparatus embodied in the 
present invention is shown to comprise a frame unit 10, a pulley unit 40, 
and a load carrying unit 60. 
The frame unit 10 comprises a ladder frame having a bottom beam 11, a bevel 
beam 12, and an upper beam 15 of an L-shaped construction fastened to the 
bevel beam 12. The rear end of the upper beam 15 is fastened to the top 
end of a strut 62 of the load carrying unit 60. A support frame 17 is 
pivoted at pivot point y to the upper beam 15. A dual-purpose switching 
device 16 is mounted to the lower end of the support frame 17 and is 
provided with two rotatable wheel fitting members 161, which are located 
respectively near both sides of the center of a bottom beam 171 of the 
support frame 17, and two arms 162 located respectively at both ends of 
the bottom beam 171 of the support frame 17. Each of the two arms 162 of 
an inverted L-shape has a short portion that is pivoted at pivot points 
X.sub.1 and X.sub.2 to a free end of the bottom beam 171 of the support 
frame 17. Both arms 162 can swivel in relation to each other. Each of the 
two arms 162 has a long portion provided with a protective casing 20 and a 
hand grip 21 whose axis and the arm 162 form a bevel which renders a 
better point of application. A protective rod 23 is mounted on the bottom 
beam 171 of the support frame 17 in such a manner that the protective rod 
23 extends downwards to pass beyond the bottom beam 171. Two arresting 
pieces 25 of an L-shaped construction are respectively fastened to the 
ends of the two arms 162. The arresting piece body 251 adjacent to the 
wheel fitting member 161 is fastened to the end of the rope. The arresting 
piece 25 has another arresting piece body 252 provided with an arresting 
bar 253 for use in keeping the two arms 162 in an open position. A chair 
set 26 comprising a seat 27A and a back rest 27B is mounted on the bevel 
beam 12 under the switching device 16. A leg stretching device 28 is 
disposed in front of the seat 27A. A pulling device 29 is mounted on the 
front end of the upper beam 15. 
The pulley unit 40 is composed of two groups mounted respectively under the 
upper beam 15 and over the bottom beam 11 and is turned by a rope 41 so as 
to transmit the power and to increase the mechanical advantage. 
The load carrying unit 60 comprises a plurality of weights 61 stacked 
together such that the weights 61 can be raised and lowered by the rope 
41. The desired number of the weights 61 can be determined by the user of 
the multipurpose gymnastic apparatus of the present invention. 
The multipurpose gymnastic apparatus of the present invention is different 
from those of the prior art in that the invention is provided with two 
wheel fitting members 161, two arresting pieces 25, and a protective rod 
23. Each of the two wheel fitting members 161 can be rotated by the rope 
41. Each of the two arresting pieces 25 is fastened to the end of the arm 
162 and is provided with an arresting piece body 251 that is fastened to 
the end of the rope 41. Each of the two arresting pieces 25 is further 
provided with another arresting piece body 252 provided thereon with an 
arresting bar 253 for keeping the two arms 162 in an open position. The 
protective rod 23 is mounted on the bottom beam 171 of the support frame 
17 such that the protective rod 23 extends downwards to pass beyond the 
bottom beam 171 and remains a distance from the rope 41. 
The multipurpose gymnastic apparatus of the present invention has 
advantages over the multipurpose gymnastic apparatus of the prior art, 
which are described hereinafter. 
When a user of the multipurpose gymnastic apparatus wishes to do a chest 
building exercise, he or she may use his or her arms to push the 
protective casings 20 of the arms 162 so as to actuate the rope 41 to 
raise the weights 61 of the load carrying unit 60. When the user wants to 
do an arm building exercise, he or she does not have to do any mechanical 
adjustment of the multipurpose gymnastic apparatus of the present 
invention. All he or she has to do is to hold the hand grips 21 to push 
the support frame 17 upwards so as to cause the protective rods 23 to 
press against the rope 41. It must be noted here that the protective rods 
23 must be caused to press against the rope 41 for the purpose of 
preventing the wheels of the wheel fitting members 161 from deforming so 
as to prolong the service life span of the wheels. In addition, the hand 
grips 21 of the present invention are so arranged that the axis of each of 
the two hand grips 21 and each of the two arms 162 form a bevel, which 
permits the point of application of an arm building action to be 
stabilized and which prevents the arm building exercise from interfering 
mechanically from the chest building exercise. In short, the multipurpose 
gymnastic apparatus of the present invention permits a user to do the arm 
building exercise and the chest building exercise without having to make 
manually any mechanical adjustment of the apparatus.