Arm muscles 'exploded': CrossFit addict suffers serious complication after training too hard

By doing too many pull-ups, a young woman caused rhabdomyolysis. Illustration Unsplash

A workout that ended in hospital. An American woman, who practices CrossFit quite intensively, took on the Murph challenge, which turned out to be far too intense for her arm muscles.

This is a fairly rare complication, which Jessica Johnson, a 25-year-old American, experienced when she was hospitalized after her arm muscles “exploded”.

She wanted to do the Murph Challenge, a cross-fit challenge that involves running a mile, doing 300 squats, 200 push-ups, and then 100 pull-ups before running the original distance again, according to The New York Post,, which broke the story.

Until she could no longer feel her hands

To achieve her goal, the young woman did “ten sets of five pull-ups”, a health professional explained. This exercise left her particularly exhausted. The next day, Jessica felt her arms sore and swollen, unusually. However, the sportswoman told herself that it was because she hadn't worked her arms this much in a long time.

It was when she realized she could no longer fully extend her arms that the American began to worry. Then her urine took on an orange tint, despite the CrossFitter's good hydration, until finally, Jessica Johnson could no longer feel her hands. After a quick examination, the doctors advised the young woman to go to the emergency room.

"Muscle fiber destruction"

There, the athlete was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis, defined as a "Striated muscle fiber destruction syndrome, characterized by the release of muscle cell components into the blood" by the Academy of Medicine.

According to the New York Post, the condition can be fatal. “In rhabdomyolysis, your cells explode in your muscles”, explained the young woman, who escaped serious kidney damage, which can be the consequence of rhabdomyolysis. Despite liver damage, the athlete was able to leave the hospital fully recovered, indicates the American media.

The young woman, she, will listen to her body better in the future and has chosen to tell her story to warn about the dangers of the Murph Challenge or any overly intensive training done without supervision.