Over its 32-year history BFS has developed the BFS Safety Package that will enable you to get started immediately with improving weightroom safety and reducing your liability.
"In the past, lawsuits against coaches happened, but certainly not at the rate we’re seeing now. Today, parents of athletes are not content to just sit back and look at coaches as if they couldn’t do anything wrong."
Marc Rabinoff, Ed.D.
Full Professor, Department of HPSLS
Metropolitan State College of Denver
Denver, Colorado
Safety and Liability In-Depth Information
Lawsuits against weight training instructors happen all the time. That’s a fact. It’s also a fact that 80 percent of the litigations against weight training instructors involve injuries caused by inappropriate supervision. In other words, if you’re involved in a lawsuit, there is an 8 out of 10 chance that the plaintiff attorney will claim that you – or your staff, if you’re an administrator – were not supervising the weightroom properly at the time their client was injured.
In the area of professional standards, also known as standard of care, there are three basic accusations that a plaintiff attorney will make. They are as follows:
1. You Are Qualified to Do Something and You Did It Wrong.
You made a mistake. For example, you lost your concentration and did not spot a bench press properly, and the result was an injury to the individual performing the exercise.
2. You Didn't Do Something That You Were Qualified to Do and Were Supposed to Do.
For example, if you are trained in CPR and somebody is having a problem in your weightroom who requires CPR and you don’t administer it, you could be held responsible – especially if being CPR certified is a criterion for you to hold that job.
3. You Did Something That You Are Not Qualified to Do.
You went beyond your area of expertise. For example, if an athlete gets hurt in the weightroom and you decide to set a broken bone, well, unless you have a medical degree, you’re probably going to be in big trouble when you try to put that bone back in place. And this is why I stress the importance of all weight-training instructors acquiring a certification specific to this field. If you can’t justify your academic and professional practical background before you walk into a weightroom to coach trainees, don’t walk into that weightroom!
One question I’m often asked when I lecture on the topic of weightroom supervision is "Why are coaches being sued?" And the answer I give them is that in about 90 percent of the lawsuits I’ve seen, the primary cause of the litigation was poor instruction. Did the coach teach that athlete how to squat properly? Did he follow appropriate warm-up protocols? Another, which is becoming increasingly common, is "Did the coach use the proper progression for that activity?"
"We’re not like Don Quixote; we don’t saddle up and go jousting with windmills. We’re not supposed to wander around and try to correct every ill we see on the face of the earth. However, we are significantly responsible for our own activities where we are employed when we put that name tag on that says 'Weight Training Instructor.'"
Marc Rabinoff, EdD
Full Professor and Chair
Department of Human Performance, Sport and Leisure Studies
Metropolitan State College
Denver, Colorado
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