GMA: CrossFit and RHABDO

[naldridge]

Good Morning America just did a feature on CrossFit's "Dirty Little Secret" and Rhabdomyolysis, an "uncool, serious and potentially fatal condition resulting from the catastrophic breakdown of muscle cells."

Here is the article they reference: medium.com/health-fitness-1/97bcce70356d

Part of it says,
"A quick search of the Interwebs reveals copious amounts of information about rhabdo purveyed by none other than CrossFit trainers. Scouring the scientific literature in mainstream medical journals, however, reveals a only a few peer-reviewed papers. The science confirms that exertional rhabdomyolysis, as this form is sometimes referred to, is uncommon and normally reserved for the elite military trainee, ultra-endurance monsters, and for victims of the occasional psychotic football coach. Rhabdomyolysis isn’t a common condition, yet it’s so commonly encountered in CrossFit that they have a cartoon about it, nonchalantly casting humor on something that should never happen.

So what is rhabdomyolysis exactly? Under extreme conditions your muscles cells explode. They die. They leach protein out into the blood stream, including one form called myoglobin. Ever stalwart, your kidneys take up the job of clearing these dangerous proteins from the blood. Why? It’s just what they do. Unfortunately, myoglobin proteins aren’t designed to be in the blood in the first place and they can easily overload the kidney. This can produce injury or death to all or part of the kidney in a short amount of time, and is potentially lethal. Locally, the muscles are left damaged and dying. Swelling ensues and weakness occurs as pressure builds around the remaining muscle cells. Your body’s systems that normally can assist with this local muscle damage are now offline trying to help you not die. If you get to this stage, you’re in serious trouble."

CrossFitters and all you other workout-crazy fools (I mean this in a looooving way!), have you heard of this? Experienced it? Thoughts? 

[pixy0stix]

All I've got on this is that there has been an article going the rounds on FB.

[joenali]

Risk is inherent in all sports. The big one in triathlon is heart attacks (caused by a myriad if reasons) during the swim.

[naldridge]

Maybe I've been hiding under a rock but I haven't heard anything about this IRL or on FB until this morning. I don't really understand why this is any more common in CF than in other high intensity workouts.

[suzyp]

This article annoys the shit out of me. It is very rare and not unique to Crossfit, so I don't get the point of the article about how it's some CF trend. I mean, you could do an article on a football player getting rhabdo and have the same "scare tactic." Crossfit isn't for everyone, that's cool if it's not your thing. I just get annoyed that people who have never done CF, seems to have an opinion on how dangerous CF is or what a workout is like. I feel this is similar to a yoga artcile that was going around a few years ago about how if you did a certain move incorrectly, you could get a stroke or something similar.

I will say, we have been talked to about rhabdo in my box in conjunction about staying hydrated because I live in Houston and its hot in the summer and hydration is a big deal when it's 90 degrees with 95% humidity (at 6am!)

[emilyinchile]

The article that goes with the cartoon doesn't seem to be to "nonchalantly cast humor," and the fact that the original article tries to paint it that way makes me skeptical of the bias. The CF article linked says that this has been an issue for only 5 people, which has got to be a pretty damn low percentage, and talks about ways to avoid further cases. That doesn't make me think that this is some kind of evil CF epidemic.

I've never heard of this in any of the sports or working out I've done, but it doesn't hurt to know.

[itsme]

Saw this a few times on my wall. It is definitely targetting Crossfiters. Not sure what the deal is attacking it. You make the workouts as intense as you want just like any other exercise.

[pixy0stix]

Sept 26, 2013 9:30:05 GMT -5 itsme said:

Saw this a few times on my wall. It is definitely targetting Crossfiters. Not sure what the deal is attacking it. You make the workouts as intense as you want just like any other exercise.

I've read a couple of more "in depth" articles that target the fact that Cross Fit coaches are often inexperienced, and push their clients harder than normal. Which, across the board, tends to hold true.