Doctors issued warning after woman’s ‘muscles exploded’ from doing too many pull-ups at gym

Written by Maxine Harrison.

While we all have body goals and typically see the dedication to the gym as a good thing, a young lady’s encounter at the gym challenges this idea as her ‘muscles exploded’ after working out.

On Tuesday 20 August, Jessica Johnson from South Carolina, US was completing her first week of Crossfit’s intense regime, known as the Murph Challenge. The workout includes runs, pull-ups, push-ups and squats, and attempted 50 pull-ups at her local gym on Tuesday 20 August.

However, in anything but a rewarding response from her workout, the 25-year-old woke up the next day with ‘super sore’ with ‘swollen’ arms but assumed it was because she hadn’t trained her upper body in a while.

But it was more than just a standard way of her body communicating that she hadn’t worked out in a while.

The healthcare worker’s arms continued to blow up and left her feeling like ‘hulk’. Eventually, she started to lose feelings in her hands and so was rushed to hospital on Saturday 24 August.

Upon her hospital visit, doctors diagnosed the gym enthusiast with rhabdomyolysis (rhabdo), a serious condition where muscles break down and release harmful substances into the blood. This disease is often caused by high-intensity exercise done over a short period and can cause organ failure or at worse, be deadly.

However, despite the ordeal, Jessica was discharged from the hospital four days after being admitted. Raising awareness of the disease and her experience, the fitness fanatic took to TikTok to post a video of her in hospital, captioned: ‘Getting hospitalized with rhabdomyolysis was definitely not on my 2024 bingo card’. The viral video now has over 360,000 views.

The fitness fanatic was diagnosed with rhabomyolysis disease (Kennedy News and Media)

Another clip shows Jessica explaining her diagnosis and warning others to ‘take it easy. You don’t need to go that hard. You’re fine’.

And it’s not just Jessica who seems to be aware of the repercussions of working out ‘too hard’.

Many users took to the comments to share their similar experiences, with one user admitting their ‘sister got rhabdo training for a Murph [challenge]’.

Sharing how she felt about the whole incident, Jessica said: “I was very shocked. It felt embarrassing. I was admitted into the hospital for four days.

“I thought ‘I’m here because I did too hard of a workout and I’m literally one of the fittest people I know’. I was definitely shocked and didn’t know that this could happen.”

If this doesn’t serve as a warning to take it easy on your workouts, I don’t know what does!