By Alki X Gym trainer, Aaron Wagar
Many of you may have heard of CrossFit’s mascot Uncle Pukey. You may have even seen T-shirts depicting him. But I wonder how many of you have heard of CrossFit’s Uncle Rhabdo? Personally, I was shocked when I heard of him.
Uncle Rhabdo is a clown. In the classic CrossFit-style cartoon, Uncle Rhabdo is standing in a pool of his own blood (pictured left). He is hooked up to a dialysis machine, his kidney has fallen out along with part of his bowel, and he is visibly exhausted. Uncle Rhabdo is suffering from Rhabdomyolysis.
This is a serious condition in which muscle cells breakdown and overwhelm the kidneys – body’s blood filtering system. This not a tiny bit of muscle damage, this is a catastrophic breakdown which always results in kidney damage and even potential kidney failure. Yes, Rhabdomyolysis can kill you.
I first heard of Rhabdomyolysis a few weeks back when a fellow exercise scientist shared a blog post with me. The blog post detailed how a young, fit physical therapist developed Rhabdomyolysis as a consequence of a CrossFit workout. The workout consisted of partnering up with a fellow Crossfitter, and doing as many sets as possible of pushups and overhead presses. The partners would trade off every 10 reps. This young woman did “hundreds of repetitions of each.” She explained that she did not want to “not match my partner.” Normally she probably would have rested a little, “but the partner workout kept me going.”
On the way home from CrossFit, her arms felt like Jell-O. Her triceps were in agony. She wasn’t sure why her
