The call follows the online distribution of a video recording of an accident in which a man suffered a broken leg from the use of a leg press machine.
“Gyms need to appoint people who look out for beginners who seem like they’re not too sure of what they’re doing or who seem to be using the machines or weights wrongly,” said Raja Mohammed Firhad Azidin, who heads UiTM’s Sports Science Studies department.
He said this was a question of work ethics.
“It is unethical to allow someone to continue performing an exercise improperly.”
He urged gyms in the country to look into the need to enforce health and safety regulations.
“If you go to gyms in Australia and the UK, you’ll see there are certain regulations that have to be enforced such as that the pieces of equipment have to be placed a certain distance from each other.
“In Malaysia, you can see that the gyms are very compact and this just makes it evident that the health and safety regulations are not being addressed.”
He affirmed, however, that though there was a risk of getting injured in a gym, the positive impacts of going to one far outweighed the negatives.
“People shouldn’t be afraid of going to the gym as long as they exercise a certain sense of caution and are knowledgeable about the proper technique for any given exercise,” he said, adding that nowadays the information on proper techniques was easily attainable.
“There are mobile applications that can help you, there are social circles out there with people who can teach you the proper techniques and there’s also the internet. It’s not as hard as it was in the past.”