wecarelife: Fitness centre for your pocket

Many people associate the word muscle building with weight lifting and an expensive membership in the fitness center. Inventions such as the Tao WellShell show that this does not have to be the case. With these gadgets you can work on your own fitness at any time and anywhere, without much effort.

Inventors from Nevada have been working on the development of a new fitness gadget for some time now. The Tao WellShell has the size and shape of a computer mouse. Inside, sensors are built in to measure the pulse and pressure exerted on the device.

The WellShell has been developed to facilitate the integration of sports activities into everyday life. The way it works is simple: hold the WellShell z. B. between the hands in front of the chest and presses the palms against each other, as if you were praying.

The strength, length and precision of the applied pressure are recognized by the sensors and visualized via an app. It also shows how many calories the exercises burned and how many points were scored. Rewards or reward points are paid into the achievement of the daily Tao goals, which you determine yourself.

The calibration of the Tao WellShell is exciting. In order to check one’s own progress in strength, the maximum force is measured the first time a new exercise is performed. The progress curve is then based on this.

The Exercise Log visualizes how much and how precisely you have trained over the last few weeks and how many calories have been burned.

Like many newly developed fitness gadgets, Tao chooses the approach of gamification to make sporting activity more exciting. The app, which is to be launched together with WellShell in 2016, offers various games that can be integrated into the exercises. So the user can use z. B. ski or jump over various hurdles.

The Tao WellShell is controlled by pressure. The stronger the pressure on the device, the higher the character in the app jumps. It doesn’t matter whether you press the palms against each other or push the WellShell z. B. placed between hand and thigh or hand and abdominal muscles.

The training effect of WellShell is based on so-called isometric exercises. This type of training is static, which means that there is no muscle contraction or stretching. Instead, the strengthening is done by muscle tension. No weights or dumbbells are needed for this. However, they can be used to increase the intensity.

A simple everyday example is the carrying of heavy shopping bags. This stimulates the arm and shoulder muscles with a tension stimulation without leading to classical flexing and stretching movements. If we are at the mercy of this stimulus for a long time, we feel the training effect the next day: We suffer from muscle ache!

Isometric exercises can also be carried out easily at the desk. For example, you can strengthen the trapezoidal muscle by placing the palms of your hands on the table top from below and pulling them strongly upwards; hold this pull upwards for 10-20 seconds and relax.

Hip flexors and thigh muscles can also be trained in this way. To do this, simply press the knees against the table top from below and hold them in this position for a few seconds.

Isometric exercises are also used by top athletes. Especially during injury breaks, when dynamic training is not advisable, static exercises can help prevent muscle atrophy. However, an exclusive focus on isometric exercises is not recommended.

After six to eight weeks of regular training, there is hardly any significant increase in strength or endurance. In addition, muscle elasticity decreases. A healthy mix of static and dynamic exercises is therefore the be-all and end-all of a healthy sport routine.