You know those "dialable" dumbbells that were all the rage a year or two ago? Well, the company behind the Bowflex Dumbbells is recalling about 17,000 sets of them. According to Nautilus' press release about the recall the "dials", or weight selectors, can fail. And when that happens the weights can slip out of place and injure you.
The company says that it's aware of 16 incidents in which this has happened. It also says that in 3 of those incidents the users were injured when the weights struck their legs and feet. (The company has not said how serious those injuries were.)
The product being recalled here is Bowflex® SelectTech® 1090 Dumbbells. If you have these you should first, says the company, check the inside area of the weight selector for a black dot. If you find one--and you can see exactly where to look by going to Bowflex's recall page and clicking on the "product identification" link--your product is not affected. If you don't, you should then look for a white sticker on the underside of your cradles. (Nautilus wants me to remind you to take the weights out of the cradle before you turn it over.) On that sticker you'll see a 3-part serial number. The part of the code you're looking for is the 4-digit code in the middle--the 4 numbers just after the word "MAG". If your code falls anywhere between 1111 and 1136 you have a recalled product.
If you have a set of the recalled Bowflex dumbbells in your possession you're urged not to use them until you contact Nautilus for a free repair kit.
There are believed to be about 17,000 of these in use here in the US. They were sold from May through August of 2011 and cost about $600 a set. They were made in China.
