Ever had a scary workout? Or a fluke error that you thought would never happen while at the gym? Well, you are not a lone. After chatting with fellow students and friends on UA’s campus, we inquired some interesting stories about scary gym incidents.
Gym equipment can be quite heavy and when it is not used for the way it was intended, incidents can occur that lead individuals to being injured.
When you thin of being injured at the gym, what do you think of? For us, it’s a simple oh I dropped a dumb bell on my toe. For others, it’s a bench press dropping on their body. Both of these are scary situations that unfortunately some individuals have been faced with.
One student we talked to had quite the story. One day she was on the treadmill running at her normal pace of 5.5 mph. If you know anything about running on the treadmill, 5.5 is a pretty moderate pace for a jog. Once you start getting up into 6 mph that’s when your legs start having to keep up a bit more. Obviously your stride has a role in how fast you can run as well, so everybody runs at different paces. This individual started to pick up the face, moving into the 6’s then into 7’s and eventually hit her top pace of 9 mph. The student said she was so proud of herself but started to feel fatigued. She didn’t realize how fast she was going and that she couldn’t keep the face up for her normal time. She said she eventually slipped off the back of the treadmill before realizing and didn’t have time to hit the stop button. Luckily, she was not injured just more in shock of what had just happened to her. She took it as a learning lesson and now realizes her top pace of 9 mph can only be run for 30 seconds. Scary but what a story!
Another student had an interesting story of getting a Charlie horse on the leg press machine. We had never heard of something like this happening before. She said she was going about her normal gym routine and noticed her leg had felt a bit sore but didn’t think anything of it. She continued on with her workout and when it got time to continue her reps on the leg press machine her back calve just cramped up into a Charlie horse. She said it was one of the most painful experiences since she had a weight on her leg and a cramp, luckily she wasn’t injured besides the Charlie horse.
The only experiences we have had that have freaked us out at the gym have been lifting a weight to heavy and dropping it on our toes. Nothing can beat those two stories above. It is important to keep your body healthy, hydrated and stretched when participating in any type of exercise. You should also always be aware of the limitations for your body, everybody is different. You don’t have to lift the same weight or run the same mph just to keep up with somebody else. Do what is best for your body and be proud of that. The gym can already be a scary place so don’t make it even scarier with an accident. Let us know below if you have any scary gym experiences.
