Shoe wear-out sensor, body-bar sensing system, unitless activity assessment and associated methods

1. A body bar sensing system, comprising:

a housing having at least one detector for sensing a physical metric that indicates repeated movement of the housing when attached to the body bar;

a processor configured to process the physical metric, over time, to determine repetitions thereof; and

a display for informing a user of the repetitions.

2. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a wireless transmitter with the housing and a watch, with a wireless receiver, remote from the housing, wherein the user views repetition information at the watch.

3. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a wireless transmitter with the housing and one of a MP3 player and cell phone, with a wireless receiver, remote from the housing, wherein the user views repetition information at the MP3 player or cell phone.

4. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a clamp, integrated with the housing, to retain weights on the body bar.

5. A body bar sensing system for sensing movement of a body bar, the body bar sensing system comprising:

a housing having a coupling mechanism operative to couple to the body bar;

a detector disposed within the housing and operative to sense movement of the body bar when the housing is coupled to the body bar; and

a processor operative to determine a number of repetitions of the movement based on the sensed movement.

6. The body bar sensing system of claim 5 , wherein the detector comprises an accelerometer.

7. The body bar sensing system of claim 5 , wherein the detector is further operative to output the sensed movement as an acceleration value.

8. The body bar sensing system of claim 5 , wherein the detector comprises a Hall effect sensor.

9. The body bar sensing system of claim 5 , wherein the detector is operative to sense the movement by detecting inversion of the body bar.

10. The body bar sensing system of claim 5 further comprising a display operative to display the determined number of repetitions of the movement.

11. The body bar sensing system of claim 10 , wherein the display is remote from the housing.

12. The body bar sensing system of claim 5 further comprising a speaker operative to output at least one sound based on the determined number of repetitions of the movement.

13. The body bar sensing system of claim 12 , wherein the at least one sound comprises at least one voice annunciation.

14. The body bar sensing system of claim 5 , wherein the coupling mechanism is further operative to retain at least one weight to the body bar when the body bar sensing system is coupled to the body bar.

15. A method for detecting repetitive movements of a body bar using a motion sensing system, the method comprising:

detecting a physical metric associated with the body bar using a detector of the motion sensing system when the detector is coupled to the body bar;

processing the detected physical metric to determine whether the detected physical metric indicates a repetitive motion of the body bar;

determining a current number of repetitive movements of the body bar based on the processing; and

providing the determined current number of repetitive movements to a user.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the detecting comprises detecting an acceleration of the body bar.

17. The method of claim 15 , wherein the processing comprises detecting when the body bar is at least one of raised and lowered within a predefined time interval.

18. The method of claim 15 , wherein the detecting comprises detecting an inversion of the body bar.

19. The method of claim 15 , wherein the providing comprises displaying the determined current number of repetitive movements.

20. The method of claim 15 , wherein the providing comprises transmitting the determined current number of repetitive movements to an external device.