I could tell something was off one morning during the summer of 2020 when I went to the bathroom and saw what appeared to be grainy bourbon swirling around in my toilet bowl. (Sorry if I’ve forever ruined your fave whiskey for ya!) Startling, oh yes. Thinking back, I had been nursing achy hamstrings following a kettlebell workout a few days prior. And since my pee certainly hinted that something wasn’t working right internally, I suspected the two were connected.
Until that workout, I hadn’t picked up a kettlebell in months. It had been my primary form of exercise for six years—I even got certified to teach it—but I was starting to burn out, so I swapped in a less intense Pilates practice. Now I was ready to ease back into the swing of things (key word: ease).
I began with a 30-pounder and did one-minute intervals of swings, squats, and presses, eventually moving up to 45 pounds. I’d worked with that weight before—but again, it had been awhile. I left the gym hobbling (oh, my hammies!) but otherwise fine.
The soreness lingered but wasn’t bad enough for me to cancel Saturday Pilates. A stretch might be good, I told myself. But I woke up the next day to my unfortunate bathroom sitch.
I was vaguely aware of the condition known as rhabdomyolysis, in which injured muscle tissue breaks down and releases its contents into the bloodstream, potentially damaging the kidneys. But I figured there was no way my 25-minute kettlebell sesh could have been intense enough to cause that level of harm. Yet I found myself Googling “that thing when you work out too hard” (who can remember the word rhabdomyolysis?).
One of the first symptoms I came across: dark, brownish-colored urine. After some initial testing at urgent care, I was referred to the ER, where doctors measured my creatine kinase (CK)—an enzyme found in your muscles that, when elevated, may indicate damage. I learned just how injured I was: A healthy adult’s CK level falls between 22 and 198 U/L (units per liter); mine was a whopping 90,000 U/L.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
