Pumping Iron Again

 

Last summer, in an effort to build some muscle mass for bone health, I bought a pair of Bowflex adjustable dumbbells. Back when I was much younger, my parents brought home a bench weight set with two dumbbells that we utilized until we graduated from high school. The dumbbell set were concrete filled plastic encased weights that slid onto a heavy steel bar with collets that required an adjustable wrench to tighten/loosen a set screw anytime you wanted to adjust the weight. Although I have no idea what became of the rest of the set, I carried one barbell with me throughout life and only sold it a few years ago at a garage sale. The reason I sold it was that it was too heavy for me to lift now and I had no extra weights to make it lighter. 

I just figured my weight lifting days were done but then after loosing a good deal of weight a year ago, I thought I might get back into it again if I could find something that fit better. The Boxflex suited my needs and best of all, required only the twist of a knob on each side to adjust how much weight. So instead of five minutes changing over weights to go between bicep curls and shoulder raises, I could do so in a matter of seconds with no tools required.

Then I got a notice that the set had been recalled.

According to what I could find, whatever mechanism allows you to select how much weight you want to list would fail and weights would fall off. People have gotten seriously injured from the falling weights. I ignored the issue for awhile and avoiding holding the weights over my head but that introduced bad form and even weights held at say waist level could fall and break toes or feet. So I began the process of filling out recall forms.

I'm not sure how long it took to complete the recall, but I think it has been about three months now. I had to send in pictures and fill out paperwork. Once accepted they sent me a prelabled box to put the base and handle in. The weights themselves I had to remove and right now occupy a corner of my office/exercise room. Eventually I will keep some of them for weights to keep things flat when woodworking and find another home for the rest. I was without anything at all for several weeks until the dumbbell seen above arrived at my door this afternoon.

It looks just like my other ones but instead of a red plastic piece that goes through the weights on each end it is now gray. Since I don't have the old set to compare with, I'm not sure what they did to "fix" the issue that caused the recall. It wasn't really clear what I would receive, only that I asked for a replacement instead of a refund so I'm glad to see they are for all practical purposes the same as the old ones which I liked. My only issue was that they recalled a pair of dumbbells but only sent me one. Our UPS delivery drivers have been known to drop of some of my packages on one day and then the rest a day later, perhaps due to poor organization on their truck racks, so I told myself not to worry until the following day. However, a couple hours later, the same UPS truck and driver returned to my house and left the second pair so now I have the full set.