Uncle Rhabdo?
Please don't go until you rhabdo, and definitely don't spend money on this t-shirt.
I had never heard of it. No, not rhabdomyolysis. I had never heard of the term "uncle rhabdo." I guess the term is rather common in the CrossFit world, and that is understandable given that this high volume exercise is now incredibly common. What I would like to understand is whether this a badge of honor (like, "I worked out soooo hard I got rhabdo, dude!") or perceived as something to be avoided.
Seeing as how rhabdomyolysis achieved a nickname, it must be fairly common in the CrossFit community. I haven't found any scientific literature on the subject with actual statistics of the number of CrossFitters who have had rhabdomyolysis so I could speculate...but I won't. A quick google search will show you a fair amount of shock journalism:
These are not exactly reputable sources, and the authors are just trying to grab attention with their titles. It's encouraging to see that the CrossFit Journal has actually been warning of the dangers of rhabdomyolysis as far back as 2005, reporting just 5 cases to date way back then. While I don't think that the CrossFit brand is anxious to give out statistics on how many members are hospitalized each year due to this condition, it appears that they are aware that rhabdomyolysis can occur in their gyms. How much the general public and individual trainers know about the condition is unknown to me.
