Training Chair
The Training Chair is a versatile piece of equipment that can be used for a variety of training purposes. Here are just a few examples of how you can use the Training Chair to get the most out of your workout:
1. Sit in the chair with your feet on the floor and your back against the backrest. Use your arms to support your body as you slowly lower yourself down into a squat position. Hold this position for a few seconds before returning to the starting position.
2. Place the chair in front of you and sit on the edge of the seat with your legs extended in front of you. Lean forward, keeping your back straight, and place your hands on the floor beside the chair. Slowly lower your body until your chest is touching the seat of the chair. Hold this position for a few seconds before returning to the starting position.
3. Sit on the edge of the seat with your legs extended in front of you and place your hands on the armrests. Using your arms, lift your body up off the seat and hold yourself in this position for a few seconds before lowering yourself back down onto the seat.
4. Sit in the chair with your feet on the floor and your back against the backrest. Place one hand behind your head and grab hold of one of the armrests with your other hand. Using both arms, lift yourself up offthe seat and hold this position for a few seconds before lowering yourself back down onto
The training chair has been used since antiquity, although for many centuries it was a symbolic article of state and dignity rather than an article for ordinary use. “The chair” is still used as the emblem of authority in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom[6] and Canada,[7] and in many other settings. In keeping with this historical connotation of the “chair” as the symbol of authority, committees, boards of directors, and academic departments all have a ‘chairman’ or ‘chair’.[8] Endowed professorships are referred to as chairs.[9] It was not until the 16th century that chairs became common.[10] Until then, people sat on chests, benches, and stools, which were the ordinary seats of everyday life. The number of chairs which have survived from an earlier date is exceedingly limited; most examples are of ecclesiastical, seigneurial or feudal origin.[citation needed]
Chairs were in existence since at least the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt (c. 3100 BC). They were covered with cloth or leather, were made of carved wood, and were much lower than today’s chairs – chair seats were sometimes only 10 inches (25 cm) high.[11] In ancient Egypt, chairs appear to have been of great richness and splendor. Fashioned of ebony and ivory, or of carved and gilded wood, they were covered with costly materials, magnificent patterns and supported upon representations of the legs of beasts or the figures of captives. Generally speaking, the higher ranked an individual was, the taller and more sumptuous was the chair he sat on and the greater the honor. On state occasions, the pharaoh sat on a throne, often with a little footstool in front of it.[11]
The average Egyptian family seldom had chairs, and if they did, it was usually only the master of the household who sat on a chair. Among the better off, the chairs might be painted to look like the ornate inlaid and carved chairs of the rich, but the craftsmanship was usually poor.[11]
The earliest images of chairs in China are from 6th-century Buddhist murals and stele, but the practice of sitting in chairs at that time was rare. It was not until the 12th century that chairs became widespread in China. Scholars disagree on the reasons for the adoption of the chair. The most common theories are that the chair was an outgrowth of indigenous Chinese furniture, that it evolved from a camp stool imported from Central Asia, that it was introduced to China by Christian missionaries in the 7th century, and that the chair came to China from India as a form of Buddhist monastic furniture. In modern China, unlike Korea or Japan, it is no longer common to sit at floor level.[12]
In Europe, it was owing in great measure to the Renaissance that the Training Chair ceased to be a privilege of state and became a standard item of furniture for anyone who could afford to buy it. Once the idea of privilege faded the chair speedily came into general use. Almost at once the chair began to change every few years to reflect the fashions of the day.[13]
Thomas Edward Bowdich visited the main Palace of the Ashanti Empire in 1819, and observed chairs engrossed with gold in the empire.[14] In the 1880s, chairs became more common in American households and usually there was a chair provided for every family member to sit down to dinner. By the 1830s, factory-manufactured “fancy chairs” like those by Sears, Roebuck, and Co. allowed families to purchase machined sets. With the Industrial Revolution, chairs became much more available.[15]
The 20th century saw an increasing use of technology in Training Chair construction with such things as all-metal folding chairs, metal-legged chairs, the Slumber Chair,[citation needed] moulded plastic chairs and ergonomic chairs.[16] The recliner became a popular form, at least in part due to radio and television. In the 1930s, stair lifts were commercially available to help people suffering from Polio and other diseases to navigate stairs.[17]
The modern movement of the 1960s produced new forms of chairs: the butterfly chair (originally called the Hardoy chair), bean bags, and the egg-shaped pod chair that turns. It also introduced the first mass-produced plastic chairs such as the Bofinger chair in 1966.[18] Technological advances led to molded plywood and wood laminate chairs, as well as chairs made of leather or polymers. Mechanical technology incorporated into the chair enabled adjustable chairs, especially for office use. Motors embedded in the chair resulted in massage chairs.[19]