Bradley Martyn is known for taking fitness content to extremes — but one viral stunt left him with 10 stitches and a fresh reminder that even gym giants aren’t invincible.
The 36-year-old fitness influencer and bodybuilder — followed by millions across Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok — went viral after a weightlifting stunt went wrong, leaving him bloodied but still cracking jokes online.
On Instagram, Martyn wrote: “Posting in 5 mins how i destroyed my face, it’s been 12 years since I been filming stupid lifting videos. I finally got got.”
And “got got” he certainly did.
The clip, originally posted to TikTok and later shared on YouTube and Instagram, shows Martyn lying on a bench while holding a heavy bumper plate across his chest. For most of us, that would be challenge enough — but the stunt took a turn for the extreme when a woman climbed on top of the plate. Martyn began bench pressing both the plate and the woman at once, successfully pressing them into the air several times before disaster struck.
As he lowered the plate, the woman appeared to lose her footing, slipping off and striking him directly in the face with her foot. The plate may have come down hard too, leaving Martyn with a nasty gash that required emergency treatment.
He captioned the post: “How it feels when you drop your phone on your face.”
The video has since been viewed millions more times on YouTube and Instagram — with comments ranging from concern to amusement.
One viewer joked: “This is why I whisper nice things to my plateweights everyday!… you never know when one is just going to flip on you.”
Another wrote: “Darwin Award Finalist. Glad ur ok dude!”
A third added: “Thats what you get for turning the gym into a circus.”
Martyn himself joined in on the banter, confirming that he was left needing: “10 stitches lol.”
In a follow-up Instagram Story, he thanked the staff at West Hills ER for patching him up, noting that the woman and his teeth were both unharmed — “which is a bonus,” he said.
In a YouTube follow-up, Martyn broke down exactly what went wrong. He said: “I tried to lift a girl. Now, I’ve done this before where a girl sat down on a plate and I pressed her. But, someone was like, ‘Why don’t you have her stand up?’ and I was like yeah, that’s cool, that’s easy.”
He explained that this time, he used a high-density rubber bumper plate instead of a steel plate — a decision he later called a mistake. He added: “Two things I did wrong here. Have her spin around and use a bumper plate.”
Because bumper plates are designed to absorb impact, they’re harder to balance on, making the stunt far riskier than it looked. After the accident, Martyn said he waited four hours at a local emergency room to get “10 stitches” inside his mouth.
The bodybuilder, who has more than four million followers on Instagram and hosts the Raw Talk podcast, is no stranger to viral extremes. His past videos have included lifting women, sparring with animal carcasses, and even a tug-of-war with a tiger.
But this latest mishap serves as a reminder of how quickly viral gym content can cross into danger territory. TikTok has previously flagged videos under tags like “injury while lifting weights” — which collectively have over 600 million views — and health experts have warned against risky trends that encourage unsafe behaviour in pursuit of views.
For now, it looks like the only thing heavier than Martyn’s bench press might be the lesson he learned: even the strongest can take a hit.
Featured image credit: Instagram/@bradleymartin (screenshot)
