Sports injury stats per 100 participant hours in school sports: Powerlifting (USA) 0.0027, Weightlifting (UK) 0.0017 [1] Among elite competitive weightlifters:

Sports injury stats per 100 participant hours in school sports: Powerlifting (USA) 0.0027, Weightlifting (UK) 0.0017 [1] Among elite competitive weightlifters: Injury rates for the subset of resident athletes at the USOTC were 3.3 injuries (most frequent were tendonitis and muscle strains) per 1000 weightlifting training hours. [2] "[It's reported that] weightlifting (is) one of the safest sports with 0.0017 injuries per 100,000 hours of participation" [3] I've been powerlifting for 6 years, was competitive for three of those years, and am friends with and know at least a hundred serious, amateur, competitive powerlifters and weightlifters. My anecdote, with that background in mind, is that I have only seen or heard of injuries happening when people IGNORE their body telling them to stop. So they either put too much weight on the bar, KNOW that it's too heavy for them, and then push through anyway, or they let their ego get in the way and are trying to show off and screw around (this is far more common than the first scenario). The thing with free weights of any kind is that it's only as dangerous as you make it. YOU are in control of your form, you are in control of how much weight you use, you are in control of the bar path, and you can take it as slow as you want. [1] Hamill 1994/ http://www.exrx.net/WeightTraining/Safety.html http://www.exrx.net/WeightTraining/Safety.html (lots of good info at that link) [2] http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andrew_Fry/publication/7219831_Injury_rates_and_profiles_of_elite_competitive_weightlifters/links/0c960522780b62be59000000.pdf http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andrew_Fry/publication/7... [3]http://breakingmuscle.com/olympic-weightlifting/how-dangerous-are-weight-lifting-and-olympic-lifting-really http://breakingmuscle.com/olympic-weightlifting/how-dangerou...