Ace Specialty, Inc.

Grace Premier Fitness and Wellness Products, Inc.

Mark Harigian

Karl F Anderson

User-manipulated exercise equipment of the type utilizing a weight-plate stack comprises a stack of weight plates, of which a user-selected portion moves as a unit along a pair of guide rods in response to an exercise movement by the user. The selected portion of the stack moves with virtually no cross-wise (i.e., lateral) shifting among the plates and virtually no friction between the moving portion of the stack and the guide rods because (1) a keystone bushing below the weight plate stack provides virtually error free alignment with the guide rods by setting the non-selected portion of the stack at a highly accurate 'home' position that resets the moving stack if it has shifted laterally during movement, even if that shift is very slight, and (2) the guide rod holed in the weight plates carry bushings which align with the bushings of the adjacent weight plates to prevent the plates within the moving portion of the stack from shifting laterally with respect to each other and thereby contacting a guide rod. Preferably, the topmost weight plate in the moving portion of the stack carries bushings forming a smaller gap with the guide rods than the bushings of the remaining weight plates so that, at worst, only the topmost plate will contact a guide rod resulting in negligible friction.

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Glendale, CA, United States of America

Mark Harigian