GH Sit-Up claims another Rhabdo victim

[Stephen Searcy]

Just got back from being up all night in the Santa Monica Hospital with my wife who was diagnosed with Rhabdo from last Saturday's GH Sit-Ups. Not a cool experience and she is out for the next 5-7 weeks with a severe muscle tear. Absolutely kills me to see her in this pain knowing that we both completely under estimated the ability that this exercise has to hurt you if not properly done right. Obviously looking back we should have known better, but there should be more of an open warning about these. After checking this board for others who have experienced the same, it happens all too frequently. Good thing is if I would not have read through some of these post over the past 2 days, I would not have known to make the Dr. check her Ck levels (still don't even know what that really is) by doing blood work.

We were almost sent home without them thinking to check for this and by doing so ultimately calling us back to the ER last night. Could have been bad and thank God we caught it before kidney damage was done.

My venting is over. Taking the day off and hopefully I can get the little lady feeling better.

[George Mounce]

Originally Posted by Stephen Searcy

Just got back from being up all night in the Santa Monica Hospital with my wife who was diagnosed with Rhabdo from last Saturday's GH Sit-Ups. Not a cool experience and she is out for the next 5-7 weeks with a severe muscle tear. Absolutely kills me to see her in this pain knowing that we both completely under estimated the ability that this exercise has to hurt you if not properly done right. Obviously looking back we should have known better, but there should be more of an open warning about these. After checking this board for others who have experienced the same, it happens all too frequently. Good thing is if I would not have read through some of these post over the past 2 days, I would not have known to make the Dr. check her Ck levels (still don't even know what that really is) by doing blood work.

We were almost sent home without them thinking to check for this and by doing so ultimately calling us back to the ER last night. Could have been bad and thank God we caught it before kidney damage was done.

My venting is over. Taking the day off and hopefully I can get the little lady feeling better.

Both Rhabdo and a muscle tear? Ouch! Much rest is needed.

For most people its is high repetition movements that generally have a good eccentric portion to the movement. Jumping pull-ups are another well known exercise done in high reps that can be evil.

The warning is out there - see the (wfs) "Killer Workouts" article. Anyone else who hasn't read this article should - much pain and suffering (at least from rhabdo) can be avoided.

[Blair Robert Lowe]

I read about another case of rhabdo by GluteHam situps in the comments section of a WOD earlier this week sometime. It was something like 150 Glute Hams that did him in.

Between the lunging and hip extensions, I can see the glute hams being deadly.

[Vanessa Sisson]

CK= Creatine Kinase. It's just an enzyme that basically indicates muscle damage. They measure CK-MB levels in patients suspected (or known) to have had heart attacks.

[Scott Borre]

Sorry to hear. Its definitely a big issue due to the amount of stretching they do to the stomach muscle. It just breaks it down. People need to take it very slow with them (before doing a full set of them, do like 5 of them as a part of your warmup for a couple weeks).

[Sarena Kopciel]

WOW, I hope your wife feels better real soon and be extremely conscious of her return to mov't. Slower than you think may be the best bet!

[Stephen Searcy]

Thanks everyone! She has had a great attitude about the whole deal and has been and will be doing a lot of bed rest. She was 3 weeks into finally doing cf with me and I was excited that she had finally caught the desire bug to really to commit to it. I just feel guilty that I let this happen to her while doing the WOD together. Oh… it was also her bday the day she did the damage.

The abdominal recovery is going to be a slow one to bounce back from. Does anyone have any experience in recovering from something like this? How long should we expect before just being able to take walks around the block… runs around the block? I realize that this will be a slow gradual build up any exercise movements.

Anyone have any advice on the nutrition side of recovery from a severe muscle tear? Obviously a well balanced diet but I wasn’t sure if there were any foods or vitamin supplements that may aid in the process.

As always any help is much appreciated.

[David Wood]

Stephen: my best wishes for her recovery.

You might post your question over on the Catalyst Athletics / Performance Menu boards, it might draw some good discussion there, too.

Naively (operative word: *naive*), I would think that heavy doses of oral proteolytic enzymes might be helpful.

[Steven Bowser]

Not that I am an expert but thru experience Glutamine helps my recovery like you wouldnt believe.
Best wishes and a speedy recovery.

[Martin Brown]

Here is the one that got me about 1 1/2 months ago.

For time:
135 lb Squat clean, 10 reps
50 GHD Sit-ups
135 lb Squat clean, 8 reps
40 GHD Sit-ups
135 lb Squat clean, 6 reps
30 GHD Sit-ups
135 lb Squat clean, 4 reps
20 GHD Sit-ups
135 lb Squat clean, 2 reps
10 GHD Sit-ups


I don't know if I had rhabo (was extremely sore for about a week but didn't go to the Dr.), if I did it was a minor case, but I know that at the very least I strained a muscle. I did this WOD on June 3rd and I still can't do a full glute ham sit-up without some pain. What was interesting is that I think it was the combination of the squat cleans with the GHD that did me in, as I've been doing GHD sit ups for almost a year now. I did a WOD back in May that was 5 sets of 30 GHD and 30 back extensions and had no problems.