From the Gym Floor to the CPSC: Twenty Years of a Known Defect

BowFlex adjustable dumbbells have been a fixture in American home gyms since 2004, sold at Dick’s Sporting Goods, Best Buy, Amazon, and on bowflex.com for between $200 and $800. The product’s entire marketing premise was convenience and safety. The company boasted that a single set could “replace 15 sets of weights” using a dial mechanism, and the owner’s manuals, some dating back to 2006 and 2008, explicitly promised “an exclusive locking mechanism designed to ensure proper and complete selection of the weight plates as well as to ensure weight plate retention during the workout.”

That claim was false. As of the June 5, 2025 CPSC recall announcement, the predecessor company Nautilus/BowFlex had already logged 337 reports of weight plates dislodging during use, including 111 injuries. Complaints to the CPSC’s own safety database stretch back to at least March 2011, more than fourteen years before a single product was pulled from shelves. The company continued selling under the exact same branding, with the exact same manuals, while that injury count climbed.

In March 2024, Nautilus/BowFlex filed for bankruptcy. The assets were scooped up by Johnson Health Tech Retail, Inc., a Wisconsin-based fitness equipment company, for a price negotiated in a March 4, 2024 asset purchase agreement. Johnson Health Tech then relaunched the exact same BowFlex website, the same phone numbers, the same branding, and the same dumbbells. It received 12 additional reports of plates dislodging before finally co-announcing the recall with the CPSC on June 5, 2025.

The Buyout They Cannot Deny

The lawsuit reveals something damning: Johnson Health Tech acknowledged in the asset purchase agreement itself that it had conducted an “independent inspection and investigation” of the acquired assets before finalizing the deal. The agreement granted Johnson Health Tech access to “all premises, property, books, records, contracts, and documents of or pertaining to the Business.” That includes warranty claim data, customer complaints, and CPSC correspondence.

Monitoring CPSC complaints is standard industry practice, and the complaint database is public. A CPSC filing from March 2011 already described a consumer whose weight plates fell off and struck his foot. Any company conducting due diligence on a fitness equipment purchase would have found this data. Johnson Health Tech bought the problem knowingly, rebranded it as their own, and sold it to new customers for over a year before pulling the plug.

The Non-Financial Ledger: What a Coupon Cannot Cover

Elizabeth Cosin bought her BowFlex 552 dumbbells on December 5, 2020, for $379.54 ($379.54 is roughly two weeks of groceries for a family of four). She reviewed the product descriptions on bowflex.com. She read that the product had been “carefully engineered and manufactured.” She read about the exclusive locking mechanism. She purchased a piece of fitness equipment she believed was safe. On June 5, 2025, more than four years later, she received an email from the company telling her the dumbbells she had been lifting in her home were a hazard. Johnson Health Tech then offered her $60 (about the cost of one therapy session copay, or three tanks of gas) as compensation for a product that is now unusable and must be replaced at a cost of $429.

That $60 offer represents 15.8% of what she paid. She cannot use the dumbbells anymore. She cannot get a replacement from a different retailer and apply the voucher there; the voucher is locked to bowflex.com, forcing her to return money to the company that deceived her. Cosin’s story is identical to that of roughly 3.7 million Americans who purchased these dumbbells before April 23, 2024, and are now in exactly the same trap: stuck with a recalled product and a worthless coupon, with no recourse against Nautilus/BowFlex because that company dissolved in bankruptcy.

The 111 people who suffered injuries during the Nautilus era did not receive a voucher. They received concussions. They received broken toes. They received contusions — bruises caused by blunt impact trauma. These are people who were doing something most of us do: trying to stay healthy, working out at home, trusting that a product sold in Best Buy and Dick’s Sporting Goods was safe because the manual said it had a locking mechanism designed specifically to prevent exactly what happened to them. The design language in those manuals was not ambiguous. It promised protection. It delivered injury.

The complaint alleges the company and its predecessor knew about this defect before the products were ever sold to the public. Pre-release testing revealed the problem. Fourteen years of CPSC complaints followed. Three hundred and thirty-seven formal reports piled up. One hundred and eleven people were hurt. And throughout all of it, the locking mechanism language stayed in the manual, the product stayed on the shelf at Best Buy, and not one warning label was added. The lawsuit states explicitly: “There is no warning of any kind of the Defect anywhere on the Products’ labels, on the websites where the Products were sold, on the Products themselves, or in the Owners’ Manuals.” Zero warnings. For fourteen years.

The Math They Did on Purpose: Voucher Value vs. Real Cost

The gap between what consumers received and what replacement actually costs is not a rounding error. For a 552 dumbbell owner who received the minimum $20 voucher, the gap is $409 (roughly four months of a car insurance payment). For a 1090 owner who got the maximum $95 voucher, the gap is $704 (more than most Americans pay in rent for a week). The voucher is also locked to bowflex.com, which means consumers must funnel additional hundreds of dollars back to the company that sold them a dangerous product in the first place.

The lawsuit also notes that the recall was “only briefly publicized and in a very limited manner,” meaning many of the 3.8 million affected consumers still have no idea their equipment is under a federal recall. The people most likely to be harmed are the ones still using the dumbbells right now, completely unaware.

Straight from the Documents: The Quotes That Condemn Them

“The weight plates can dislodge from the handle during use, posing an impact hazard.”

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Recall Announcement, June 5, 2025

“There is no warning of any kind of the Defect anywhere on the Products’ labels, on the websites where the Products were sold, on the Products themselves, or in the Owners’ Manuals.”

Class Action Complaint, Paragraph 27, Filed June 16, 2025

“PURCHASER ACKNOWLEDGES THAT PURCHASER HAS CONDUCTED AN INDEPENDENT INSPECTION AND INVESTIGATION OF THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF ALL ACQUIRED ASSETS AND ALL SUCH OTHER MATTERS RELATING TO OR AFFECTING THE ACQUIRED ASSETS AS PURCHASER DEEMS NECESSARY OR APPROPRIATE AND THAT IN PROCEEDING WITH ITS ACQUISITION OF THE ACQUIRED ASSETS… PURCHASER IS DOING SO BASED SOLELY UPON SUCH INDEPENDENT INSPECTIONS AND INVESTIGATIONS. ACCORDINGLY, PURCHASER WILL ACCEPT THE ACQUIRED ASSETS AT THE CLOSING ‘AS IS,’ ‘WHERE IS,’ AND ‘WITH ALL FAULTS.'”

Section 8.1, March 4, 2024 Asset Purchase Agreement between Nautilus, Inc. and Johnson Health Tech Retail, Inc.

“When consumer dials in the weights on the weight lifting set, they do not lock on to the dumbbell so when it is lifted up, the dumbbell plates often fall off. Consumer had one fall onto his foot as he lifted the dumbbell from the stand. The plates fall off sometimes when he is working out with them.”

Consumer Complaint submitted to the CPSC, March 14, 2011 — 14 Years Before the Recall

“We are stepping up to provide the pro-rated voucher to U.S. consumers who bought recalled dumbbells from a bankrupt company, even though we have no obligation to do so. Offering this voucher is a good-faith gesture from our company to help U.S. consumers replace the product — even if they bought recalled dumbbells from Nautilus several years ago. Making this extra effort fully aligns with our company’s commitment to helping our customers lead healthy lives.”

Johnson Health Tech, official “Dumbbell Recall Information” page, bowflex.com — the company’s own public justification for the $20–$95 voucher

“Defendant’s conduct is malicious, fraudulent, and/or wanton in that Defendant intentionally misled and withheld material information from consumers, including to increase the sale of the Products.”

Class Action Complaint, Paragraph 134, Filed June 16, 2025

Bigger Than One Lawsuit: How This Damages Everyone

Public Health: A Safety Hazard With a 14-Year Head Start

A dislodging weight plate is not a minor inconvenience. The CPSC-confirmed injury list includes concussions, contusions, abrasions, and broken toes. Concussions are traumatic brain injuries. A broken toe can require surgery, immobilization, and weeks of missed work. Contusions from a 52.5-pound or 90-pound metal plate can be severe enough to require emergency care. These injuries happen during exercise, when a person’s muscles are fatigued, their balance is engaged, and they are least equipped to catch or dodge a projectile.

The complaint points out that for every formal complaint made to the CPSC, the statistical likelihood is that many more incidents went unreported. The company and its predecessor knew this. They monitored the data. They made internal projections about future injury rates. And they chose not to warn anyone. The result is 111 confirmed injuries across roughly fourteen years of sales, with an unknown number of additional unreported incidents still buried in the silence of consumers who never filed a formal complaint.

The recall notice itself, issued on June 5, 2025, instructs consumers to “immediately stop using” the dumbbells. That language is urgent. Right now, there are likely millions of these recalled units still sitting in home gyms, still being used, because the recall was “only briefly publicized and in a very limited manner.” The people using them today have no idea. The company knew how to reach them; it sells a digital fitness app subscription and operates an active e-commerce site. It chose limited publicity anyway.

Economic Inequality: The People Hurt Most Are the Ones Who Bought First

The recall’s two-tier structure is a masterclass in how corporations use legal and financial engineering to shift the cost of their misconduct onto the people least equipped to absorb it. The 100,000 or so consumers who bought after April 23, 2024 receive a full refund voucher or replacement product. The 3.7 million consumers who bought before that date, many of whom purchased during the pandemic fitness boom at full retail price, receive a $20 to $95 coupon locked to the company’s own website.

The cutoff date is not based on any difference in product safety, product design, or product performance. The complaint is explicit: “There were no material changes to the Products themselves, to the marketing and branding of the Products, or to other consumer-facing materials during the relevant period.” The only difference is which corporate entity sold the unit. Johnson Health Tech drew that line to protect its balance sheet, and it drew it across the backs of the consumers who had owned the product the longest, the ones who had been exposed to the defect the most, and the ones who now have zero recourse against the bankrupt original manufacturer.

The lawsuit is seeking full restitution, disgorgement of profits, and injunctive relief. But here is what matters for the 3.7 million people caught in this gap right now: they cannot use their dumbbells, they cannot get a full refund, they cannot get a free replacement, and the company that originally sold them the product no longer exists. If the class action does not succeed, they are stuck. A $60 voucher toward a $429 product, for a problem the company knew about before the product ever launched.

Johnson Health Tech Ran the Numbers. Here Are the Real Numbers.

You Have Options. Use Them.

If you own BowFlex 552 or 1090 adjustable dumbbells, stop using them immediately. Check the serial number on the sticker on the bottom of the molded plastic tray against the ranges listed in the CPSC recall announcement. If your serial number falls in the affected range, you are holding recalled equipment.

Related posts:

Can Johnson & Johnson Listerine Mouthwash Cause Cancer? | J&J Margaret Caldwell died from whippets use. Now Florida smoke shops are getting sued. J.W. Construction’s $2,200 Fine for Endangering a Family With Lead Paint How Electrolux Profits from Under-Cooking Your Family’s Dinner