He will die because he dropped his weight bar across his throat and couldn’t tip it to either side to get it off.
“This tends to happen on those upper body workout days where you’ve tied your wrists behind you with a zip tie to increase the burn...”
I suspect it’s a team of two well trained judo guys who use a hold to keep the victim still while they put on thick, fuzzy handcuffs and ankle restraints. Then, they do whatever they do to kill him. After that, they probably use a small vacuum to get rid of any incriminating evidence.