Portable body support comprising mask and saddle

Abstract

The present invention relates to a portable body support and, more particularly, a body support providing functions of preventing the body from sliding down from an inclined support and also completely relieving load on the neck supporting the head at a face support part of the body support when the body support, such as a folding table or a portable temporary bed, is obliquely set up on the floor and used in a prone position so as to be useable for activities such as reading, thereby ensuring an effect of providing a technical configuration for not generating neck pain at all. As to the technical configuration, provided is the portable body support for coupling a face support mask and a pelvis support saddle to each other by using hinges, bolts and the like and constructing the coupled mask and saddle. When reading for a long time in a prone state by using the portable body support, comprising the mask and the saddle, of the present invention, neck pain, whole body fatigue, and the like are not generated at all, and an advantage of maintaining, for a long time, mental strength and posture to concentrate conveniently on reading in a prone state is guaranteed.

Claims

1. A portable support provided with foldable support legs to be folded and unfolded for supporting, if necessary, such as a portable temporary bed or foldable table, which includes a mask and a saddle, and has an oblique construction, more particularly, comprising: a support including support legs mounted on the bottom of the support, wherein a front support leg has a length of 30 cm or more while a rear support leg has a length of 15 cm or less, and thus, when unfolding all of the legs to erect the support on flat ground, a front part of the support is set up at a higher slope angle than that of a rear part of the support, and wherein the inclined support for supporting a whole body is divided into three parts such as a face support member, an upper body part member and a pelvis support member; a face supporting mask coupled to the face support member having a higher slope angle by using a mini-belt and bolts; and a pelvis supporting saddle coupled to the pelvis support member having a lower slope angle, on which the pelvis is sup-ported, by using a hinge and bolts, so that, when the support is used for reading while supporting the whole body in a prone state, the support enables reading while conveniently supporting the whole body including the face, the upper body and the pelvis, and preventing the body from sliding down along the inclined part of the support, wherein the pelvis support saddle is fabricated in a foldable form and the pelvis support saddle is coupled to the pelvis support member corresponding to the rear part of the support with a leg hinge and a one-touch quick release lever such that the pelvis support saddle is folded and unfolded within the range of an angle of 90 relative to the pelvis support member, and wherein a bolt hole for coupling the pelvis support member is formed in the form of a long and narrow slit from the front to the rear of the support so that the pelvis support saddle can be shifted in front and rear directions within a space of the bolt hole using the one-touch quick release lever.

Description

DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

(1) FIG. 1 illustrates perspective views of an existing upper body support designed in the art.

(2) FIG. 2 illustrates perspective views of an existing support for reading in a prone position designed in the art.

(3) FIG. 3 shows photographs of different face masks for face protection and face support.

(4) FIG. 4 illustrates an exploded view of components for a body support fabricated according to the present invention.

(5) FIG. 5 illustrates an assembly view of components for a body support fabricated according to the present invention.

(6) FIG. 6 illustrates a perspective view of a body support made of plastic materials, which was fabricated according to the present invention.

(7) FIG. 7 illustrates examples of adjusting a position of the saddle part of the body support which was fabricated according to the present invention.

(8) FIG. 8 illustrates a perspective view of a body support made of hardwood materials, which was fabricated according to the present invention.

(9) FIG. 9 is a side view photograph showing use of the body support fabricated according to the present invention.

(10) FIG. 10 is a front view photograph showing use of the body support fabricated according to the present invention.

(11) FIG. 11 illustrates an example of a portable function of the body support fabricated according to the present invention.

BEST MODE

(12) Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be more concretely described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

(13) First, FIGS. 1 and 2 are perspective views illustrating an existing upper body support and an existing body support for reading in a prone position designed in the art, respectively. FIG. 6 is a perspective view illustrating the body support fabricated according to the present invention. In general, a surfboard in a plane form is used to ride waves in a prone state by a beginner on the surface of the sea, and may be considered as a support to safely support the human body above the surface of the sea. As such, a main body 2 of the support consisting of a flat board able to support the human body in a prone state may be divided into a face support member A, an upper body support member B and a pelvis support member C.

(14) In particular, the face support member A positioned at the front of the main body 2 may include a protrusion configured in a fork form or such a form that the person should raise both arms over their head in order to couple a mask inside the center of the face support member A, wherein a plurality of bolt holes 6 is bored through the main body 2. Referring to FIGS. 6, 8 and 10, the face mask for protecting and supporting the face may be mounted on the front part of the body support 1 by suspending a mini-belt 14 having bolt holes bored therein on a frame of a mask 12 and then screwing bolts and nuts into bolt holes 6 in the face support member A to couple the mask thereto.

(15) Further, a pelvis support saddle 3 is coupled to the main body 2 in the center of the top face of the pelvis support member C positioned at the rear of the main body 2. In this regard, coupling is executed using a leg hinge 8, which is a normal furniture hinge configured to be foldable and unfoldable at an angle of 90, wherein a safety pin is attached to the leg hinge and functions to unfold the leg and fold again the unfolded leg when pushing the safety pin. For this purpose, a typical leg hinge 8 having bolt holes bored in right and left directions is used. Referring to FIG. 5 and FIG. 7, a part of the leg hinge 8 is fixed to the pelvis support saddle 3 using bolts while the other part is attached to the same by screwing a one-touch QR lever type bolt 9 into a bolt hole 11 for saddle coupling. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 7, a position of the saddle can be adjusted within a space of the bolt hole 11 for saddle coupling in the main body 2 by unlocking the QR lever 9. For reference, the one-touch QR lever 9 may be any typical one generally used in diverse applications, which typically functions to tighten or relax a bicycle saddle in order to change a height of the saddle, and therefore, a detailed description of the same as well as the leg hinge 8 provided with a safety pin will be omitted along with detailed drawings.

(16) Next, at least three support legs are mounted on the bottom side of the main body 2 by using the leg hinge 8 having a safety pin attached thereto, resulting in a portable table shape. In this case, the support legs are folded and unfolded at an angle of 90 along with the pelvis support saddle 3 mounted on the top face of the main body 2. The support legs may be positioned on the front and the rear parts, separately, wherein a front long leg 4 having a length of about 30 cm is mounted on the front part while two rear short legs 5 having a length of about 15 cm are mounted on the rear part. Due to a difference in lengths between both the front leg and the rear legs, when all of the support legs mounted on the main body 2 are viewed in unfolded state from the side, an oblique structure is formed instead of a structure horizontal to the ground. That is, the front part A of the body support has a higher slope angle than that of the rear part C. In the main body 2 having a configuration of the front part A standing up higher than the rear part B, suppose that the most preferable length of the front leg 4 is about 30 cm or more, the length of the rear legs is preferably time or less the length of the front leg, that is, 15 cm or less. However, if required, the rear leg may be omitted in consideration of a size of the main body without any problem in the configuration of the body support. In other words, the presence of a rear leg may have relation to establishing a distance between the ground and a book to read, which is obtained due to a difference in slope angles to the ground, wherein the slope angle is established by a difference in lengths of the front and rear legs.

(17) Hereinafter, the configuration of the body support according to the present invention will be more concretely described with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5.

(18) First, FIG. 4 illustrates an exploded view of individual components of the body support fabricated according to the present invention, while FIG. 5 illustrates an assembly view of exploded components which are combined using bolts and hinges. More particularly, FIG. 5 illustrates the main body 2 of the body support 1, wherein a top face E, a left side F and a bottom face G have rotated right by 90. On the other hand, FIG. 6 is a perspective view of the body support wherein all of the front and rear legs mounted on the main body 2 as well as the pelvis support saddle have been unfolded and erected by pushing the safety pin. Further, the mask 12 coupled to the face support member A by the mini-belt 14 is typically a tool used for hiding or protecting the face and may include, for example, a camouflage mask to hide the face of a user from others, a mask for safely protecting the face from flying balls such as a face guard for baseball catchers, a glasses style mask configured for security of sight without discomfort while softly supporting the forehead and cheekbones such as diver's goggles, other masks including masks in connection with masquerade costumes, Batman mask, Korean masks, or the like, as shown in FIG. 3. That is, such masks made of rigid and/or soft materials as described above may all be called masks. A face contact part inside the mask includes a forehead contact part 13a made of a soft material and a chin contact part 13b made of an elastic material.

(19) The body support of the present invention may conveniently and horizontally support the whole face using the mask as described above. The mask 12 may be coupled to the body support by suspending the mini-belt 14, which has bolt holes on right and left sides thereof, on an edge of the mask 12 and screwing bolts into the bolt holes 6 of the face support member A. Optionally, the mask may be bound to the face support member using a strap or may be coupled to the same by a common spring-type key and keychain. Such particular couplings and illustration thereof are considered as commonly used methods and thus detailed description of the same will be omitted.

(20) Accordingly, diverse kinds of masks 12 coupled as described above may be desirably selected according to a size of the face and/or personal preference, and may be directly replaced with another one. Further, considering that the user has a different height, in particular, a different sitting height, the body support of the present invention may have such a configuration that a position of the saddle 3 of the body support is properly adjusted to suit the height of the user so as to prevent the body of the user from sliding down the main body 2 along the inclined support due to gravity, thereby being conveniently used. For instance, supposing that a sitting height of the user is 85 cm, adjusting a position of the pelvis support saddle 3 to establish a distance of 85 cm from an end of the forehead contact part 13a, which corresponds to a top end of the mask 12 set on the body support 1, to a beginning part of the pelvis support 3 and then safely securing the same with a QR lever 9, may allow the body support 1 to be under optimum conditions for use by a person having a sitting height of 85 cm. For a student having a sitting height of 77 cm, such a distance of 77 cm as described above, that is, from an end of the forehead contact part 13a, which corresponds to a top end of the mask 12, to a beginning part of the pelvis support saddle 3 could be established by adjusting a position of the pelvis support saddle 3.

(21) As described above, a user may lie on the fabricated body support 1 in a prone position such that the body including the face, neck, chest, pelvis and knees are supported by the support and can read a book opened on the floor in front of the support and/or use a smartphone or a notebook computer for a long time. Further, the body support of the present invention may have an advantage of guaranteeing desired metal strength to concentrate on reading without body fatigue and/or pain over the entire body including the neck, despite reading books while keeping the prone position for a long time.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS

(22) (1) Body support (2) Main body of support (A) Face support member (B) Upper body (chest and abdomen) support member (C) Pelvis support member (D) Armpit contact part (E) Top face of the support (F) Left side of the support (G) Bottom face of the support (3) Pelvis support saddle (4) Front support leg (5) Rear support leg (6) Bolt hole (7) Bolt and nut (8) Leg hinge provided with safety pin (9) One-touch QR lever (10) Handle hole (11) Bolt hole for saddle coupling (12) Mask (13) Catcher's mask (13a) Contact part of forehead (13b) Contact part of chin (14) Mini-belt