Comments on: Dumbbell concept looks nice, but a little thing called physics ruins the fun

By: Wtf

Wtf — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:59:47 +0000

Hahahaha wtf CRAYONS?!?!?!

By: DigitalAngel

DigitalAngel — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:18:04 +0000

I have one of those tools too, and thats what these remind me of.

By: James Talvy

James Talvy — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:24:21 +0000

I might not be a scientist but I am a pilot and do fly aerobatics…

As soon as you redirect the aircraft out of the plane that you were flying in you are will feel positive or negative G’s.

When flying “higher G” maneuvers like a simple loop you can pull 3-4 times gravity (bottom of loop) in the aircraft and although my mass has not changed the fact that I am under the equivalent of 3 times gravity makes me feel like I am 500lbs…

By: Joshua

Joshua — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:37:52 +0000

Physics are the reason this is an incredible idea. The inertia of the balls spinning creates resistance to move out them out of their rotational plane. So, you are correct in saying that weight is not not generated (being that weight is the effect of gravity on mass), but there is resistance, which is all that really matters when you are trying to get sexy.

By: KS

KS — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:14:04 +0000

This is actually a genius idea. Physics and inertia are exactly why it WILL work. A buddy of mine uses a tool for carpal tunnel that uses this exact same technology.

By: Jerry

Jerry — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:11:25 +0000

Well, actually I tought of lightsabers

By: Fence

Fence — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:10:38 +0000

Those spinning balls would add resistance, not weight. If you take a bicycle wheel and spin it, holding it by a rod through the center, it becomes difficult to tilt left and right due to gyroscopic principles (this is why moving bikes are more stable than a stopped bike). The same thing would happen here, but you’d have to tilt the bar left and right to feel the resistance, not use it as a dumbbell.

By: SwissFreek

SwissFreek — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:09:41 +0000

They might not add weight, but when you are exercising, weight is irrelevant. The point of the weights is to create resistance. Spinning objects do create inertia about the plane on which they are rotating. Everyone had that experiment in high school physics where your teacher spins the bicycle wheel and then tries to turn it so that the wheel is spinning vertically instead of horizontally, right? Same basic principle as a gyroscope. The spinning object resists being taken out of plane.

So, if you were doing bicep curls with these things vertically in your hand at the bottom of the rep, they’d be pretty much horizontal at the top of your rep, and at least in theory, based on how fast they were spinning, you could vary the amount of resistance to changing planes from horizontal to vertical.

It would require that you follow a pretty rigid form while doing your exercises (if you held them like traditional dumb-bells, for example, with the shaft pointing side to side in your hand, doing a curl would not take the spinners out of plane and therefore create no resistance), and the amount of inertia is dependent on the mass and diameter of the spinning object. By the looks of these things, they don’t have a large diameter (and probably don’t weigh much since they are supposed to be adjustable across a range that apparently goes down to at least 15), so in the end, your assessment that they are rubbish might be fairly accurate. But, at least in theory, they could KINDA SORTA work, without actually needing to “create mass”.

By: thebonafortuna

thebonafortuna — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:58:25 +0000

My first impression after glimpsing that photo was some kind of awesome new crayon. Someone should send that image to the good people at Crayola and tell them to innovate something new.