Did you hear?… Recall hits Hoist popular fold-up benches

Hoist Fitness has recalled 48,000 of six models of its fold-up exercise benches sold under both the Hoist and Body Gear names due to the hazard of potential hand or finger laceration or amputation.

Two injuries were reported to Hoist in late 2005 by dealers of the benches, which were sold between February 2004 and January 2006, Jeremy Miller, marketing manager at Hoist, told SNEWS®. The company then reported the problem to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

At the same time, Miller said, Hoist pulled all benches from sales.

“We told all our dealers to pull them from the floors and stop selling them,” said Miller. The official recall announcement, however, had to wait until the company had a fix-it kit ready to distribute.

Five of the six recalled models will be back on sales floors in May, he said, have been redesigned to avoid the pinching issue. The CPSC in its recall issued April 26 noted that the bench’s front frame assembly (with the foot rest) can fail to lock into place. That means that users who grab the bench to position themselves may get fingers or a hand trapped between the front and back frame assemblies and cut or amputated. The two injury reports included one hand laceration and one partly amputated finger.

“We remanufactured the bench so it takes that problem out,” he said. “We’re being very proactive.”

The recalled and redesigned benches are: Hoist 5 Position Fold-up Bench, HF-140 and HF-142; Body Gear by Hoist 5 Position Fold-up Bench, BG-141 and BG-143; and Hoist Ab Crunch Bench, HF-4262. For these, fix-it kits are available by contacting Hoist (www.hoistfitness.com/benchrecall). A refund or replacement is available for the HF-4163 Hoist Folding Flat Bench since a fix was not possible.

The benches, made in China, were sold at specialty fitness stores and sporting goods retailers for between $100 and $300.

To see the CPSC information, click here.