What are the most common gym injuries caused by equipment?

The most common gym equipment injuries are sprains, strains and crush injuries from dropped free weights, plus falls from treadmills, per ER studies.

Nookesh Karri ·Oct 29, 2026 · 7 min read

Cover card with the title: What are the most common gym injuries caused by equipment?

The most common gym equipment injuries are sprains and strains, and crush injuries from weights dropping on people. Free weights and treadmills are linked to more injuries than any other equipment, in both US national data and a hospital study from Australia. Most of these injuries come from how equipment is used rather than from broken equipment, but faulty machines are the part a gym owner controls directly.

Which gym equipment injuries are most common?

The most common gym equipment injuries fall into four patterns: sprains and strains, crush injuries from dropped weights, falls from treadmills, and hand injuries in moving parts. Three emergency department studies agree on this.

The biggest one covers weight training. Kerr and colleagues analysed US emergency department records from 1990 to 2007 and estimated 970 801 weight training injuries nationwide. Their main findings:

Sprains and strains were the most common diagnosis, at 46.1%.
The trunk took the most injuries: upper trunk 25.3%, lower trunk 19.7%.
Free weights were involved in 90.4% of injuries.
Weights dropping on the person was the most common mechanism, at 65.5%.

For cardio machines, Graves and colleagues studied home exercise equipment injuries in US emergency departments from 2007 to 2011. They estimated about 70 302 injuries, with treadmills accounting for 66%. Stationary bicycles were about 17% and ellipticals about 5%. Lower extremity injuries were the most common across all ages, at 37%.

Free weights: dropped plates and crush injuries

Free weights cause more gym injuries than machines, and most of those injuries happen when a weight lands on someone. In the Kerr study, that was 65.5% of weight training injuries.

An Australian hospital study found the same. Eley and colleagues reviewed one emergency department’s presentations from 2005 to 2018. They found that weights and resistance activities (n=94) and falls from treadmills (n=49) made up 55% of the 260 injuries from noncombat gym equipment. Free weights were linked to upper limb and torso injuries “caused by falling weight or being trapped by weights.”

The injuries are also worse. In the Kerr study, 23.6% of free weight injuries were fractures or dislocations, against 9.7% on machines. Women had a larger share of foot injuries (22.9%) than men (11.0%).

Treadmills: falls and moving belts

Treadmills are linked to more injuries than any other single machine. In the Australian study, the treadmill was “the single item of identified gym equipment causing the most injuries (n=49).”

Graves found treadmills in 66% of US home machine injuries, even though treadmills make up only about a quarter of the equipment market.

Two details matter for gyms.

Not every treadmill visit is an injury from the machine. Almost one-quarter (24.49%) of treadmill presentations in the Australian study were nontraumatic, mainly chest pain.
Moving parts hurt hands, mostly children’s. Graves estimated 895 finger and hand amputations and avulsions; 81.5% were in children and 73.1% were attributed to treadmills. That’s home equipment data, but if your gym lets children on the floor, keep them well away from running machines.

For how running machines fail, see why a treadmill stops suddenly.

Machines, bikes and older members

Older members get hurt on different equipment. In the Kerr study, people 55 and older were injured on machines more often (18.2%) than people 54 and younger (9.3%).

Graves found adults 65 and older were more often injured on stationary bicycles. They were also more likely than younger patients to be admitted, held for observation, transferred or to die. If many of your members are older, spend more inspection time on selectorized machines and bikes.

Injuries “involving” equipment are not the same as injuries “caused by” it

The national injury counts include every injury where exercise equipment was involved, not only those where the equipment failed.

The CPSC’s latest report estimates 564,000 emergency department-treated injuries involving exercise activity or equipment in 2024, and 1,869,000 medically attended injuries. Its own footnote warns: “The injuries were not caused necessarily by the product involved.” The figure also covers exercise activity, not only equipment.

Graves adds that the US injury surveillance system doesn’t code the mechanism of injury, so their study couldn’t say how injuries happened. A dropped dumbbell, a snapped cable and a member who tripped all look similar in this data.

My take: don’t trust any article that says a specific machine “causes” a set number of injuries a year. These numbers describe where people got hurt, not whether the equipment was at fault.

What a gym owner can actually control

A gym owner controls two things: the condition of the equipment, and what members are told about using it.

On the second, the Australian authors recommend “Risk awareness and effective education about equipment and its use at point of sale and in gyms.” On the first, start with the manufacturer’s manual. The Life Fitness Integrity treadmill manual says safety can be maintained only if the equipment is examined regularly for damage or wear. It asks for a weekly check of the emergency stop, regular inspection of the belt, deck and line cord, and keeping equipment out of use until defective parts are repaired or replaced.

Injury pattern	What the data says	What you control
Dropped free weights	65.5% of weight training injuries	Education on safe handling, racks in good repair
Treadmill falls	Most injuries of any single machine	Weekly stop-system checks, belt and deck inspection
Hand injuries in moving parts	73.1% of hand amputations linked to treadmills, mostly children	Keep children away from running machines
Older members on machines and bikes	18.2% of injuries in people 55+ involved machines	Regular inspection of selectorized machines and bikes

None of the last column works unless broken equipment gets reported and pulled from use fast. Our guides on how gym members report broken equipment and how to put an out-of-order sign on gym equipment cover that step. The daily, weekly and monthly equipment checks list covers the inspections.

GymTagOps is built for the reporting and record side. A member scans the QR tag on a machine and reports a problem from their phone without an account, and the issue stays on that machine’s service history with its priority and status. You can see it in the live demo. One limitation: GymTagOps won’t prevent an injury by itself. It records reports and repairs, and it can’t tell you whether a member’s injury was the equipment’s fault.

FAQ

What gym equipment causes the most injuries?

Free weights and treadmills. A US study of weight training injuries found 90.4% involved free weights, and a study of home exercise machines found treadmills accounted for 66% of injuries. An Australian emergency department study found the same two at the top.

What is the most common type of gym equipment injury?

Sprains and strains. They were 46.1% of weight training injuries in US emergency departments from 1990 to 2007, and the most common adult injury on home exercise machines.

How do most weight training injuries happen?

Weights dropping on the person. That was the mechanism in 65.5% of weight training injuries in the Kerr study of US emergency department data.

How many people are injured by exercise equipment each year?

The CPSC estimates 564,000 emergency department-treated injuries involving exercise activity or equipment in 2024. It notes those injuries were not necessarily caused by the product.

Are older gym members injured differently?

Yes. In the Kerr study, people 55 and older were more often hurt on machines (18.2%) than younger people (9.3%). Graves found adults 65 and older had more serious outcomes and were more often injured on stationary bikes.