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Weightlifter's accidental death sparks warning
By GORDY HOLT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
BELLEVUE -- The death Sunday of a 20-year-old weightlifter who had been working out alone with free weights at the home of a friend brought a warning yesterday from a local fitness-equipment dealer.
Never work out alone with free weights unless you have the proper safety equipment. There should always be another person, a spotter, in the room to help if you get into trouble.
The King County Medical Examiner's Office said Kevin M. Moore suffocated to death when he couldn't lift a 135-pound barbell off his neck.
"People often come in and tell me they don't lift that much weight, so they don't need safety equipment," said Tom Woodman, manager of The Fitness Shop in Bellevue.
"But even if it's just 10 pounds and it's more than you can lift at the end of a set of repetitions, you're in trouble."
Free weights are the least complicated weight-training devices but can be deadly. Modern weight machines use 5- to 10-pound iron plates stacked one on top of another and threaded onto vertical pipes. The user pulls on a cable to lift the stack. If he lets go, the weights slide safely down out of harm's way.
"There is equipment available now that can make free weights just as safe as a weight machine if used correctly," Woodman said.
Woodman described a "cage" comprising four vertical standards, two on either side of the weightlifter's bench. Each pair is equipped with a horizontal bar that can be adjusted to a point just above bench/neck height.
"If, worst case, you happen to go just a little bit too hard, find yourself in trouble and can't put that bar back up on its stand, you can let it sit on the two (safety) bars," he said.
By GORDY HOLT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
BELLEVUE -- The death Sunday of a 20-year-old weightlifter who had been working out alone with free weights at the home of a friend brought a warning yesterday from a local fitness-equipment dealer.
Never work out alone with free weights unless you have the proper safety equipment. There should always be another person, a spotter, in the room to help if you get into trouble.
The King County Medical Examiner's Office said Kevin M. Moore suffocated to death when he couldn't lift a 135-pound barbell off his neck.
"People often come in and tell me they don't lift that much weight, so they don't need safety equipment," said Tom Woodman, manager of The Fitness Shop in Bellevue.
"But even if it's just 10 pounds and it's more than you can lift at the end of a set of repetitions, you're in trouble."
Free weights are the least complicated weight-training devices but can be deadly. Modern weight machines use 5- to 10-pound iron plates stacked one on top of another and threaded onto vertical pipes. The user pulls on a cable to lift the stack. If he lets go, the weights slide safely down out of harm's way.
"There is equipment available now that can make free weights just as safe as a weight machine if used correctly," Woodman said.
Woodman described a "cage" comprising four vertical standards, two on either side of the weightlifter's bench. Each pair is equipped with a horizontal bar that can be adjusted to a point just above bench/neck height.
"If, worst case, you happen to go just a little bit too hard, find yourself in trouble and can't put that bar back up on its stand, you can let it sit on the two (safety) bars," he said.
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