My farewell to CrossFit and my encounter with the unspeakable

Full disclaimer: this is not an anti CF (CrossFit) note, I very much like it still but don’t do it anymore. This is my story.

A well-known awkward uncle came to visit me. “Uncle Rhabdo” made his appearance: uninvited, unannounced and of course, unwanted.

10 years ago, I was doing the program “Insanity” and I was looking for something more challenging that could help me build muscle mass. Someone recommended that I do CF two or three times per week. As I was doing my due diligence researching and finding it very interesting, I stumbled upon an article (I think the name was “CF’s dirty little secret” or something of the sort) in which someone linked a risk of getting rhabdomyolysis and CrossFit, something that people in the military and marathon runners are more frequently susceptible of getting.

I found the only certified (at the time) CF gym or box in my city. I did the complimentary class, asked some questions and was ready to sign up for three times a week, not without asking the owner about the risks of rhabdo. “Uncle Rhabdo” and “Pukie” were a thing back then… A little smug and cynical, he told me “If your pee is ever black, call me and I’ll personally take you to the hospital”. Of course, I don’t have his phone number, I never did.

Only six months after my first class, some coaches I’ve met opened their new box and I “moved” to theirs. I enjoyed it so much; it was the first time I had the sense of community. I was also in awe with how the body adapts, learns and transforms. The skills I was starting to develop were fun to practice… In no time I’ve forgotten about my “irrational” fear of rhabdo. I got married soon after and have been moving to different cities for the last 9 years.

About five or six years ago I was living in California training much harder than I did by the end of 2023. I used to do my regular CF class plus accessory work six days a week and Oly (Olympic Weightlifting) sessions 3 times per week.

My husband and I planned to have our first child. As soon as I found out I was pregnant I slowed down A LOT! Needless to say, I researched how to adapt, what to do and not to do; how to be safe at all times making the baby my priority.

After my first pregnancy I stopped signing up for “the Open”, a worldwide competition where CrossFit athletes all over the world are ranked by region and globally. Although I did the workouts, I focused solely on me and self-improvement, and kept it that way ever since. I got pregnant again and now I have two healthy children who I adore.

I’m very driven. I have always competed vs. myself and try to make the most out of a workout, even when training alone. My husband and I practically set up a fully equipped gym in the garage and I was able to do almost anything when I couldn’t go to the gym, many times because of the kids, especially during the newborn phase. I don’t find it hard to get motivated even when no one is watching, “sandbagging” is not an option: if I’ve shown up, I’d better make it count.

Through all those years I was never the one lying on the ground catching their breath or about to throw up; usually I recovered fast, some would even joke around and say that I was a little lazy or didn’t do much of an effort because I hardly ever looked fatigued. In a way they were right, I don’t like to feel bad afterwards and call it a good workout because I exercise for fun, to feel better… I’m never gassed out because I like to focus on my breathing, almost mathematically.

Before I proceed with my story it’s important to point out that my pain tolerance is very high but I had never made a correlation between it and resistance to exercise. I had two c-sections (almost ambulatory) with fast recoveries; no complications. Even when I was younger, once I had a little discomfort in my ear and turned out it was seriously infected.

That been said…

It was winter break. We went to the city I’m from and trained in the CF box I usually do when visiting family, the same one I “moved” to in the beginning. Since Thanksgiving I was training lighter and less intense as it turned out I had a minimum cervical dealignment and a tiny bulge, nothing serious. Now I think it might have been a warning sign. I was determined to strengthen my neck and do rehab exercises. I was doing great.

I had been cautious on my workouts but did not stop training; I was doing AMRAPS (As Many Rounds/Reps as Possible), workouts for time, fast burpees, cardio machines, dumbbell and barbell work, in addition to that I was doing gymnastic movements, tons of push-ups, squats, running and core. Even though I had lowered the weight I still had pretty hardcore workouts.

So… it was December 23, 2023 “12 Days of Christmas”, a workout inspired on the famous seasonal song was programmed at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Instead of birds and golden rings, they assign a movement or skill to each number, every box can customize its own… It usually takes around 30 to 40 minutes to finish. I had seen it on social media the day before, it looked easy, it involved simple gymnastic movements and light weights, a fun “keep on moving” kind of WOD (Workout Of the Day). Mistakenly, I arrived 30 minutes early, the gym was open, my jump rope was staring at me and I wasn’t going to use it during the workout. So, I had some time to kill… “Annie” (a benchmark WOD) crossed my mind, if you are not familiar to the workout it goes like this 50-40-30-20-10 Sit-Ups and Double Unders aka Doubles, so you do 50 Sit-Ups and 50 Doubles, 40-40… and so on. I considered it but I do not like sit-ups at all, they bruise me, so I had the “magnificent” idea to do “GHD sit-ups Annie”, GHD is a glute ham developer. As I mentioned, I was not out of shape. By half “Annie”, approximately 75 GHD sit-ups in, I slowed the pace down a little bit and continued, my time wasn’t really fast, finishing at 10:00 not a second less not a second more. I prepared for the actual Christmas workout, got my box, dumbbell, barbell, tried some butterfly pull ups and toes to bar (T2B); when trying the T2B I felt my hamstrings were kind of tired but it was only natural, I had just done 150 GHD sit-ups. The last 10 T2B weren’t easy, other than that I was fine, I was flying throughout the workout and finished fast.

At home my husband was getting ready to go out and I was about to get a shower. I asked him to look at my abs: is this normal? They looked photoshopped, like they belonged to a superhero from a comic book, craaaazy ripped. He told me that I had just come back from the workout so yes, it’s probably normal, he assumed.

We went to my parents’ house to spend the day with family. By the afternoon, I felt my abs were sore; every time I had to stand up, I had to make an effort to get straight. I was a little bent over forward when I walked, I knew that, no one noticed. To me it was obviously muscle soreness.

I woke up on December 24and saw my abs not only ripped but also bigger (inflated)…ok, I was starting to get a little worried, then again, my pee was clear (remember that in some cases it might look dark, very dark). All good, no need to panic. Moving on, I had more important things to plan for the evening and help my brother make my now famous turkey. My family has a tradition to toast before going out on Christmas Eve; we exchange our secret Santa presents and say nice words about each other, we also meditate on a Bible passage, I absolutely love this. This time we planned the toast to be earlier so that my kids could join us too, one of them put baby Jesus in the manger, a Mexican tradition. So cute.

It was Christmas Eve. I was feeling sore but well overall. We went to my aunt’s house; my kids were given a room to sleep in when they needed to; it has a private bathroom inside. Abdominal soreness was my companion that evening, my abs felt as if I had eaten a little too much. Every once in a while, I checked in on my kids; in one of those quick peeks, I peed in that bathroom and thought that the color was a little off, like a red-ish/pink hue in it, barely perceptible, not even as bright as when you eat beets. “Maybe I’m quite dehydrated” I thought as a way to stave off the panic. I hurried to drink a large red cup of water, then another one as well, why not?… Next bathroom trip: a little clearer, I kept drinking water, I think I drank around 6 cups in a small period of time. Finally, it looked completely normal, but my abs were a whole different story, they started to annoy me. Remember my superhero abdomen? Well, not anymore: two long vertical cylinders were trying to pull away from my body, oh and I suddenly got love handles. I asked my husband to take a look while “checking in on the children”, then told him that I wanted to go to the ER after the gathering was over as I don’t usually like to make a fuss. I also asked my mom (who definitely doesn’t share my love for CF whatsoever) not to judge me because I was getting scared, that I might have been developing rhabdo and asked her if she could take the kids with her. Soon enough my husband made me realize that it was the middle of the night on Christmas Eve, hospitals might be understaffed, labs would probably be closed. I seemed to be fine, only kind of sore with a deformed abdomen, unnoticeable to others underneath my dress.

Many thoughts crossed my mind: “What about Santa?” My kids waking up on Christmas day without their parents, I would miss them opening their presents and look at their joyful faces. Ok I could wait until morning to call someone. By then it was already 2 a.m. anyway.

As one might imagine, I had hardly slept. First thing Christmas morning I called a doctor, I don’t think he really tried to listen to me, he was prescribing some over the counter gas relief tablets for my abdominal pain. He did tell me to take a urine sample the next morning, though.

I was feeling frustrated, you know how much doctors love to have self-diagnosed patients (not being sarcastic AT ALL…) My mom reminded me that an old friend from my catechism group when I was little is a doctor now. He moved to another city but he’s a really good urologist who did his specialty in one of the best Hospitals of the country, whom by the way, I hadn’t spoken to in the last 20 years or so.

Nervous and embarrassed I texted him. “Merry Christmas, it’s Fulanita, blah, blah may I call you for consultation please?” He listened to me and was kind, he went over the events with me really trying to understand, I felt listened to. I told him I had family plans and would fly on the 27th but was worried that something would happen to me on a beach in the middle of nowhere, so he gave me a prescription for a blood work and urine sample for me to be calm on my trip. My voice seemed to be fine, my energy was as usual, my pee was clear. Mid-morning, after the presents and some magical moments I took a shower, wait, what? My belly was jelly! Hard weird jelly, not like the soft postpartum kind, but a blob. OK, I DO think I have rhabdo, my abdominal morphology went through crazy changes in a 48-hour lapse. I texted the doctor… there’s nothing else to do but wait as my bloodwork and urine sample had to be taken while fasting.

On December 26th we were supposed to start packing for the family vacation (my husband’s side). This is huge. Every other year, his family plans a New Year’s Eve trip that includes absolutely everyone in his family: great grandma, second cousins, great grandchildren, everyone. They start planning it early in the year.

At 7:30 a.m. I was already in the Lab doing my tests. I went back home; I was supposed to get my results between 5-6 p.m. My cousin, who is more like a sister to me came over to spend time with my kids and me. I was telling her all about the past couple of days. I was not sore anymore, I was completely energetic, a little less worried, skipping and running around with (more like after) my children. She told me I looked great and that I was most certainly overreacting, there’s no way I was sick, maybe bloated? A little past noon the phone rang, it was the doctor telling me that they had called him from the lab and that I needed to see someone ASAP. I didn’t know a specialist in the city so he shared a contact who turned out, hands down, the best one I could’ve asked for. He went on talking about some high levels but the one parameter that was off the chart was from my CK levels (Creatine Kinase, skeletal muscle enzymes), which I had added to the test after reading that that’s an indicator for rhabdo. Normal CK levels range between 30-135 units/L for women, they may increase after a workout, in order to be diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis CK levels rise over 1,000. In high performance athletes, they could reach even higher levels right after hard training… This could cause kidney damage, in some cases people need dialysis, in more severe cases you could die. My CK levels were over 80,000 OVER EIGHTY THOUSAND! Actually, the lab meter capped at 80,000 and wouldn’t measure higher levels, it was estimated that my CK levels reached over 100,000. That’s freaking scary news to take in.

It’s important to note that in the past days I hadn’t been hydrating well, I was training in a different environment and weather, not my usual, and did a lot of GHD sit-ups which I hadn’t been doing lately; little did I know that precisely GHDs had taken others to the ER. I had the perfect combo and ended up with rhabdomyolysis.

“Pack your bag, meet me in the ER, you are staying overnight, 48 hours perhaps”, said the doctor after I forwarded my results.

Our flight was scheduled for noon the next day. After I was settled in my room and the doctor had explained what’s about to happen, we asked about the trip. He told us we may be able to travel, obviously that would mean for me to be moved around on a wheelchair in the airport and for my husband to take care of both our little kids, in addition I would be needing to be in semi bed rest all week. We talked about it and moved our tickets two days from the original date. I thought it was going to be uncomfortable and hard, that meant I’d have half day to organize and pack while in semi rest; I didn’t have the heart to tell my husband the logistics I was thinking of. He was excited that we might make it, even for a couple of days. We sent a text to the family group to let them know that for some health circumstances we’d arrive late.

I received an intense Intravenous (IV) treatment, and stayed two nights in the hospital, the only thing bothering me (besides not hugging my children) was the catheter, meaning I felt pretty comfortable there. I was sitting on the hospital bed chatting and feeling good on the outside although I knew my body was not fine.

On the day I was released my CK levels had drastically dropped to 25,800 and I was all swollen, face, legs and abdominal area, even the c-section pooch got big. A lot to do with all the fluid running through my veins.

I had to be on a bland diet, take my medicines and was prohibited to carry over 4 kilos / 9 pounds (not even my baby) for the next week. With this taken into account: what to do about the trip? It hit me, not only would the logistics be hard but also, I was feeling heavy and slow. We canceled our tickets; my son was sad; he had eagerly been counting down the days for the last week. “Mom, you’re not sick anymore”. I was feeling relieved to be at my parents’ house with all the support I needed in order to recover and also guilty because I felt I had ruined our family vacation.

One week after the workout my body seemed sort of normal again and my CK levels had dropped to 8,000 (which is ridiculously high still). By day 13 my CK levels were a little above 300 and I was allowed to start my regular physical activities.

At the time I didn’t share specifics to anyone but my mom, dad, brother, cousin and husband, and I am sure that the only one who knew the severity of my case besides the doctor was my husband, who had been doing all the arrangements, the international insurance paperwork, the changing of dates, cancellation, going back and forth from my parents’ house to the hospital to spend time with the children… He was putting a smiley face on for me but was worried sick.

Because of my tenacious personality I decided to make a drastic change and start a brand-new relationship with exercise. As I stated, I rarely feel worn out while training and can easily get carried away, that’s why I need to set my own limits in order to keep myself in line. That’s the reason I decided to never do intense workouts again: nothing that resembles competing against myself (stopped competing against others since my first pregnancy), against time, personal records nor adding more and more weight. Instead, it’s time for me to be mindful, have a scheme, circuits, but never crazy fast again. Introducing barre or pilates to my routine is something I look forward to.

Over the last 10 years I had some minimum to mid-level injuries and came back stronger each time. I don’t give up easily and I truly believe that our minds can overcome everything. Now that I’m older and have a family of my own, I would find it egotistical of me to come back to the same activity.

This experience came at the right moment as I had planned my 2024 to be a year of relaxation and calm, so as I wasn’t getting away from CF because I was thinking “look how far I’ve come”, my body spoke very loudly and begged me to stop.

I am sure that the GHD sit-ups + the circumstances around me were the cause. Anyone could argue that if I “go easier” on the weights and pace I would be fine, that I could continue training as usual. The thing is: I don’t want to.

I’d been thinking that I’d quit when the time is right, the truth is, I didn’t know whether I’d be able to like another hobby/exercise as much but I’ve been thinking of several alternatives already.

To my surprise I felt really excited to try something different and also to stop getting hurt. I mean, we get used to feeling uncomfortable and having recuring injuries as we push ourselves against the clock or our Personal Records. We don’t like to admit it but there’s almost always something sore. All normal, right? And what about the FOMO when taking a break? I refuse to feel like that again.

For the past 15 days I’ve been feeling lighter, more at ease, grateful and replenished. Unexpected and also true.

I’m so grateful that I got the chance to not only survive but also to have 100% reversible damage, although at the time I didn’t know what to expect, how my body would respond to the treatment and its plans for recovery.

I can’t get my head around how the levels were THAT high, thankfully my kidneys suffered close to nothing but my liver did get swollen and took longer to heal.

“Severe Rhabdomyolysis” was the diagnosis: I was very lucky and I feel tremendously blessed. It gives me the chills every time I think about those CK numbers.

I won’t forget this: Before heading to the hospital to be admitted I stopped to see my kids taking their nap, I kissed them as they were sleeping and had a thought, just for a fraction of a second, “I don’t want to miss out on their lives” and “I don’t want them to grow up without their mom, especially losing her to rhabdo”.

As soon as the IV therapy started, I began to feel relaxed as the treatment had begun and no dialysis was needed.

I don’t want to scare anyone or for people to pity me. Life happens, accidents too. We decide how to face the circumstances.

It’s been two weeks since my last CF WOD. It’s not easy to say goodbye to something I’ve been enjoying and was a part of for a decade. It may seem too drastic to some.

I still love CF and watching people compete. I’ve felt the adrenaline, the empowerment, the sense of community, I had the opportunity to visit boxes in different cities and countries… The fraternity is unparalleled.

I’m not scared of the sport but I fear missing out on my family’s future, I have to make sure that my mind actually understands and make myself conscious that I, unknowingly, pushed a little too much.

This has been a humbling journey. I realized that I have been overestimating my capabilities in all aspects of my life as I’m the type of person who has a hard time reaching out to people and asking for help. I tend to minimize most anything “hard” that happens to me because I am an optimistic. I have so much to be thankful for and rather focus on the bright side. I am learning to acknowledge my needs while I’m still processing my experience. Sharing it is part of it.

This is the end of a chapter (a really fun and amazing one) that I will miss at times and will remember with a smile on my face.

If I hadn’t known about rhabdomyolysis and read about it a long time ago, things could’ve ended badly, even fatal. Also, because of my good healthy habits, and an excellent doctor by my side, my body recovered faster than expected. I am extremely grateful for this chance to redirect my energy.

I have two beautiful, wonderful kids and a loving husband with whom I want to continue sharing life AS LONG AS POSSIBLE.

It’s clear now: I have the responsibility in life to take care of myself in order to take care of my beloved ones.