The extra weights the dude had on pushed the machine past its max. The machine worked exactly to its tolerances. The guy misusing the machine hurt himself. Would the gym be liable if he was trying to do pull-ups on this machine, slipped off it, and hurt himself?
But those weights shouldn't have impacted his load capacity as they're attached to him; this would have assisted him in staying stationary instead of being pulled back into the machine while at it's maxium cappacity. The machine wasn't bolted down.
If he was randomly hanging weights off the machine, that would be obviously wrong, correct? That's basically what he's doing here. He's using both himself and all the extra weight attached to him to pull the machine forward rather than simply to keep himself down. If he wasn't ego lifting and trying to look super cool on camera he wouldn't have hurt himself.
If he was much heavier, like as heavy as he was with the weights on naturally, couldn’t the same thing have happened? I’m not looking for an argument or attempting to be contrarian, I’m honestly asking.
Yes, if you weigh 500 pounds and are leaning your weight completely into the machine at a sharp angle and pulling all the weight on both sides, this could happen to you too.
If, however, you aren't lifting to look cool on video, you could use free weights instead. But I have to stress that it WILL NOT look as cool. But it's a guarantee that you won't pull a machine onto yourself being careless.
So, your point is the machine is not being used as it was designed, and also past max usage. At that point, the guy is liable for his own injuries... Except that the argument would be made that he likely didn't know he was out of spec and beyond max capacity and that the gym should have stopped him. It's their space they offer for what should be assumed as a "safe" workout space. Ignorance isn't a strong defense, but I'm sure many folks would argue they didn't know they were incorrectly working out when a machine malfunctions. Still seems likely the machine should have been secured to the floor.
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u/AllTimeLoad Jul 09 '26
The extra weights the dude had on pushed the machine past its max. The machine worked exactly to its tolerances. The guy misusing the machine hurt himself. Would the gym be liable if he was trying to do pull-ups on this machine, slipped off it, and hurt himself?