Yoga student in China wins $42k payout after leg bone snaps in gym

Hong spent six days in hospital being treated for the injury. Photo / 123RF

A Shanghai gym was ordered to pay one of its members 195,000 yuan ($42,700) after she snapped her thigh bone and was permanently injured trying to follow her yoga instructor's directions in a class, according to a Chinese media report.

The 55-year-old client, a woman identified only as Hong, first sued the unnamed gym in February last year, three months after she broke the bone as the instructor corrected her in a seated pose called baddha konasana, Shanghai-based online news outlet ThePaper.cn reported on Tuesday.

Hong spent six days in hospital being treated for the injury.

In its defence in the Shanghai Pudong New Area People's Court, the gym said Hong should have told the instructor to stop when she felt pain, the report said.

The court ordered the gym to pay Hong 15,000 yuan ($3300) to cover her medical expenses and 10,000 yuan ($2200) in compensation.

Hong sued the gym again in September for an additional 190,000 yuan ($41,600) in compensation, claiming her leg was permanently damaged by the injury, the report said.

The same court ruled in her favour a second time, awarding 170,000 yuan ($37,200), adding that the gym did not present any further evidence to counter the claim.

"The yoga instructor failed to provide proper training to factor in the plaintiff's age and health," the report quoted the court judgment as saying. "Thus the gym should take full responsibility in this case."

Other reports of gym members seeking compensation from health clubs over injuries have surfaced as working out has grown in popularity across the country.

Last year, a gym in Chengdu, in southwest China's Sichuan province, refused to pay a 10,000 yuan ($2200) compensation claim lodged by a 28-year-old woman who said her torso was injured during a workout at the club, Chengdu Economic Daily reported in April.

Yoga in particular has become increasingly popular, with millions of Chinese having turned to the discipline for both fitness and mediation since the 1970s, when yoga was first introduced in China.

There are at least 10,800 yoga schools across the country, with some reporting thousands of members, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

- South China Morning Post