Busted Ankle -
So I'm chilling at the gym, doing my usual leg day routine. It's now time to do some calf raises. I load up the machine with weights, and start doing them. All good. Nothing going wrong.
I decide to load up with a higher weight. I take off everything and put 45 pounds on either side. Now it's 115 pounds total (including the base weight of the machine). I'm doind my calf raises and doing them well.
I hit ten reps and stop for a sec. Usually I get twelve so I go back for my final two. I go all the way down and slowly come up for the extra burn. I do it again on the twelfth rep. I get back up to the top and just wanna put the weight down.
I slam the stop lever over to the left so I can release the weight onto it. This small action is where it all went wrong. I hit the lever with so much force and leverage from the top that it bounced back from the rubber stop.
There goes all the weight. As I thought the stop would be there, I drop it all. I drop the entirety of the 115 pounds as I completely relax my muscles.
Somehow it only affected my left ankle, but it got overextended as the weight forced it down. My calves are already toast from the twelve reps, so I can't get the weight up. Luckily, my girlfriend was there to help me get the weight up.
If I had just gently put the stop into place, I could have prevented this. It wasn't a matter of ego lifting, just impatience.
Here's the machine in question:
Somehow it didn't fall onto the safety stop before jacking up my ankle. Some stupid design if you ask me. Who's decision was it to but the BOUNCIEST rubber as the stop for the LEVER, bro?? Lesson learned.