Just a PSA for those that may or may not know the symptoms of Rhabdo.

I did the Murph workout on Memorial Day and I typically work out a fair amount but haven't done kipping pull-ups in a while.

Barely got through the pull up part of the workout and I then went and hung at the pool and probably further dehydrated myself.

Anyways after a workout like Murph if in the following days you have sever pain in your bicep area to the point you can't straighten your arms, get to the urgent care or hospital asap to run a test.

Mine hit yesterday and only knew to go because a buddy of mine had this before and my levels right now are off the chart and have gotten 7 bags of IV fluid since this morning and levels still going up right now.

Thankfully no signs of any other damage at the moment but I know a lot of people who have no idea what this is and what the symptoms are. Don't try to tough through it. Get yourself to the doctor.

Friendly PSA that may help someone

hopefully crossfit isn't still seeing this as a badge of honor. I remember when it was called Uncle Rhabdo and people would get tshirts as a "prize" for getting rhabdo.

Glad you are recovering and hopefully you don't have lingering effects.

Not in a long long time. Maybe a decade ago it was a running joke, but people are more careful now. Rhabdomialaysis can happen any time you severely overuse a muscle group such that the localized muscle fiber damage far exceeds your ability to clear the proteins and other results of the extreme exertion, and it causes you kidney problems trying to filter out all the results. Different people have different levels of susceptibility to it.

It often happens when people are pushing extremely hard and ignore their body sending extreme fatigue or repetitive motion injury indications. For example, it's ok to feel tired and feel "the burn" of heavy muscle usage in a workout, but you shouldn't feel sore or hurt while doing it. That's a totally different feel than metabolic exhaustion, which is the muscles lacking easy to metabolize energy, not getting intense micro damage.

You really should train up for intense long workouts to be sure you are in condition, and listen to your body during the workout, and know the signs of rhabdo: particularly tinted dark urine.

Glad to hear you knew about it and caught it. If they can keep you well hydrated and keep your kidney function healthy, you will be fine.

I've trained and competed to exhaustion before, but I never had an issue with this because I trained up for everything I did for months ahead of time. It's a lesson you never want to have to learn the hard way.

That's the thing, never had the discolored pee and never felt hurt during the workout? Was I exhausted? Yes. But never knew anything was off until 2 days later having stuff and painful arms.

MouthBQ98 said:

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Not in a long long time. Maybe a decade ago it was a running joke, but people are more careful now. Rhabdomialaysis can happen any time you severely overuse a muscle group such that the localized muscle fiber damage far exceeds your ability to clear the proteins and other results of the extreme exertion, and it causes you kidney problems trying to filter out all the results. Different people have different levels of susceptibility to it.

It often happens when people are pushing extremely hard and ignore their body sending extreme fatigue or repetitive motion injury indications. For example, it's ok to feel tired and feel "the burn" of heavy muscle usage in a workout, but you shouldn't feel sore or hurt while doing it. That's a totally different feel than metabolic exhaustion, which is the muscles lacking easy to metabolize energy, not getting intense micro damage.

You really should train up for intense long workouts to be sure you are in condition, and listen to your body during the workout, and know the signs of rhabdo: particularly tinted dark urine.

Glad to hear you knew about it and caught it. If they can keep you well hydrated and keep your kidney function healthy, you will be fine.

I've trained and competed to exhaustion before, but I never had an issue with this because I trained up for everything I did for months ahead of time. It's a lesson you never want to have to learn the hard way.

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good to know that people have wised up. obviously, I don't keep up with crossfit. that said, as you referenced, it can happen to anyone pushing extremely hard, regardless of sport/activity. I got it the second time i ran R2R2R at the grand canyon. Didn't realize it until after, but the problem with an effort like that is, outside of calling in search and rescue, you can't really shut things down. You are on your own to get your ass out of the canyon. For me, I still felt the effects for over a month.

I had my heat stroke hiking back out, but we were doing the Dawn to dusk down and back on bright Angel back when I was way out of shape and dehydrated and we weren't going for time.

I've had deep muscle soreness from a hard/long workout or event but I think conditioning can avert the occurrence of rhabdo if you don't go too far beyond your training regimen in one big leap. It is kind of difficult to predict though. It's definitely something to be wary of when you know you are making an extraordinary effort for a substantial time.

It's still a badge of honor to be in pain and suffer.

This is something I would have enjoyed as a young officer and Soldiers would have gotten a kick out of it.

But now that I'm almost 35 (but I feel 45) and nearing the end of my time in the service, I try and take better care of myself and over the macho macho need to do a murph every Memorial Day.

MarathonAg12 said:

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It's still a badge of honor to be in pain and suffer.

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I run ultras, so I can't cast any stones.

About 10 years ago I started CF. I did a workout the 2nd week and I couldn't straiten my arms for over a week. Nothing helped - even massage. Never noticed anything about my urine, but it was bad.

I had rhabdo in my calves. That hurt like crazy and spent a few days in the hospital. Calves swelled up to twice their normal size and I could not even walk of stand straight. Urine turned a weird brown color too. Be careful out there.

50 here. More isn't better. Quit being so American, y'all.

Have seen the Murph workout cause rhabdo and borderline compartment syndrome in a SEAL. Know a sailor that had to get a paraspinal fasciotomy on a ship because he did way too many kettle bell swings and gave himself compartment syndrome in the lower back. Another soldier escaped the fasciotomy after way too many deadlifts, but was getting nearly 1 liter of IV fluids an hour for over nearly 36 hours before his CK levels started coming down.

Generally you're more at risk of rhabdo if you are exerting yourself well above your normal effort. Even if you're in reasonable shape, but haven't worked out in a while, you're at higher risk. More so than someone who isn't in as good of shape, but has been fairly active recently.

Stay safe. If you're not a competitive athlete, pace yourself in life. Personally, I want to be average now and active into my 70's and 80's more so than a super star now, and sedentary as I get older.

Need to train more or scale your Murph if it is wrecking you. A good coach won't let you harm yourself. It took me about 6 years to work up to training 1 to 1.5 hours a day every day. Sometimes I'd get in two a days for 2-3 hours.

Murph is a fairly routine workout for someone who has been training a while. We do it about once a month. Then again before I blew up my knee skiing I was training for Hyrox racing which is about 85-90 min of constant nonstop fitness activity.

You don't see people running a few miles try a marathon all of the sudden and not suffer, jump right into a triathlon, or master anything that is trying and difficult quickly. Scaling to your ability is important. I'm dealing with that right now with my repaired knee. It's severely limited what I can do so I have had to make many modifications to match my abilities right now. Challenging and helping me move towards goals but also humbling because I can in no way do what I was recently capable of.

There's no shame in scaling to your ability if it keeps you healthy on your progress to fitness. Most people where I work out scale every workout to their own history and ability.

Talked to a guy in his late 20's at the track the other day. He said he's too tired to go out with his girlfriend on the weekend because of Crossfit. I encouraged him to make better choices.

94chem said:

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Talked to a guy in his late 20's at the track the other day. He said he's too tired to go out with his girlfriend on the weekend because of Crossfit. I encouraged him to make better choices.

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Yeah that's dumb. But that's not CrossFit's fault. See post above yours.

bam02 said:

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94chem said:

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Talked to a guy in his late 20's at the track the other day. He said he's too tired to go out with his girlfriend on the weekend because of Crossfit. I encouraged him to make better choices.

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Yeah that's dumb. But that's not CrossFit's fault. See post above yours.

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Context is important. I'd argue it's healthier and someone is already making better choices when they don't go to the club until 2 am every weekend because they're waking up early to get a workout in most/every morning…..

Good point.

Every typical case I have managed has been chubby out of shape middle school boys who then start 2 a days and develop pretty severe rhabdomyolysis.

I have had a few cases of flu induced rhabdomyolysis as well.

Scary stuff glad you seem to be sparing the kidneys.

htxag09 said:

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bam02 said:

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94chem said:

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Talked to a guy in his late 20's at the track the other day. He said he's too tired to go out with his girlfriend on the weekend because of Crossfit. I encouraged him to make better choices.

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Yeah that's dumb. But that's not CrossFit's fault. See post above yours.

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Context is important. I'd argue it's healthier and someone is already making better choices when they don't go to the club until 2 am every weekend because they're waking up early to get a workout in most/every morning…..

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Definitely. But I'll run a marathon and still go out with my wife that evening (not 2 a.m.!), and I'm 50. I just wondered what that guy was doing to himself to be that wiped out.