A 25-year-old fitness enthusiast said her arms “exploded” when she developed a life-threatening health condition while preparing for a viral workout challenge.
South Carolina resident Jessica Johnson wanted to participate in the Murph Challenge, a Crossfit Hero Workout of the Day challenge in which participants run one mile before doing 300 squats, 200 push-ups and 100 pull-ups, then run another mile, usually wearing a weighted vest. The challenge honors Lt. Michael Murphy, a Navy SEAL who died in 2005 while serving in Afghanistan.
“I'm a very athletic person,” Johnson explained on TikTok. “I was a gymnast my whole life. I went on to run Division One track in college. So I'm not out of shape. [sic]. My neighbor and I started training for Murph last week…we think it's pull-ups [that caused this]”
“I was doing 10 sets of five push-ups,” Johnson said. New York Post On his third day of training. He “left the gym pretty tired” because he hadn't had his arms exercised to this level “in a while.”
While the Murph challenge was certainly safe to complete, a frightening sequence of events quickly unfolded for Johnson. When he woke up the next morning, his arms were swollen and sore in a way he had never experienced before. “I thought, ‘I haven’t done a pull-up in a long time. It’s a tough exercise. They’ll come down. It’s okay,’” Johnson recalls. But when he got up to brush his teeth, Johnson realized he couldn’t straighten his arms.
“I just went about my week and thought nothing of it,” Johnson said on TikTok. But as the week progressed, Johnson’s bloating became so severe that friends and family began comparing him to the Hulk. “Everyone was like, ‘We just thought he was really fat or something,’” he told the outlet. Around this time, Johnson noticed his urine had taken on a “weird” color. “It was darker, almost orange,” he said. “I was drinking tons of water, but I wasn’t urinating much during the day.”
When Johnson lost all feeling in his hands, he knew it was time to seek medical attention. Tests and further evaluation determined that Johnson had rhabdomyolysis, a potentially life-threatening condition in which muscles break down and release toxic chemicals into the bloodstream. The condition is caused by high-intensity exercise and can lead to organ failure or even death.
“In rhabdomyolysis, your cells basically explode in your muscles,” Johnson explained. “It’s like blood poisoning because your body can’t really filter it out.”
Doctors were worried that Johnson's kidneys would be permanently damaged, but he survived the incident without any lasting damage. He said hospital staff were “so surprised” by the positive turn of fate. “They kept saying to me, 'How do we know you don't have kidney damage right now?'”
Despite suffering some liver damage, Johnson was released from the hospital four days later and has since “made a full recovery.” The incident opened her eyes to safe fitness practices. “That was a wake-up call for me to relax a little bit,” she said. “Working too hard and doing too much aggressive exercise is not good for you and it’s not healthy.”
@jessjohnsonr Replying to @AJ enjoy story time 🫡 #fy #health #healthcare #hospital #storytime
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