Protracted irresponsiveness of overworked muscle

AlwaysKeepFit

For years, I've had a routine of supersetting pushups and pullups. I'd do the following in quick succession:

* Knuckle pushups with fists close together (less than a foot)
* Palm pushs, hands close together

* Knuckle pushups, fists wide apart
* Palm pushups, hands far apart

* Knuckle pushups, fists shoulder width apart
* Palm pushups, hands should width apart

* Pullups
* Pullups with alternate grip

For each one of these subsets, I'd go until failure (which doesn't take too long at my age). For the pullups, I try to adjust my body position so that I'm hitting the back rather than the lats.

I'd do this superset several times a day. Sometimes half a dozen, sometimes twice, depending on stress level. Sometimes throughout the day, sometimes within an hour. It's basically a stress relief valve, as well as a way to maintain caloric balance. I realize that going to exhaustion too frequently does not cause muscle to get bigger, but I was fine with the idea of small, taught muscles.

Less than a month ago, I weakened drastically over the space of a week, to the point where I could not do one pushup, nor one pullup. I found it odd that my strength on both exercises failed at the same time. It wasn't Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. I don't get those much, probably because I stretch out every day. Because of the drasticness of this weakness, and the fact that it persisted for more than a few days, I started googling. The only candidate cause I've found is "exertional rhabdomyolysis" (ER). But I don't have the signs, such as dark urine, or soreness. More accurately, I feel taught on the chest and the back, but when I poke and knead the front, I do feel a twinge that might loosely be described as pain (but only loosely). It's like the practice of using a lacrosse ball to massage one's butt cheek. Kind of like pain, but not really.

Another symptom of ER is irregular heart rhythm. I often felt some odd quivering in the vicinity of the heart, but I was never sure whether it was really the heart or perhaps it was just the chest muscle twitching on its own. I thought it was just lack of sleep and/or streess. Since I stopped pushups and pullups, it has receded.

Anyway, it's been about 1.5 weeks since I did any real pushups or pullups. Any "test" that I do reveals that I haven't recovered much, if at all. I can still do my core (bridges for front, back, and sides). The minor use of arms to stabilize during the core training is enough to make my chest and back muscles feel like they've been through a workout. I am guessing that such minor stress might help them recover.

Without taking time off work for medical examination, is there any way to get some kind of corroboration of the possibility of ER (or just as useful, some anti-corroboration)?

DopeItUp

Well, I'm no doctor and honestly asking for messageboard advice for a potentially dangerous or even fatal condition is EXTREMELY foolish. Rhabdo is no joke, you can end up with kidney failure or liver damage that is irreversible (at the very least)

From what I've seen and heard, the symptoms are quite varied from person to person so diagnosing something complicated like this through a few paragraphs of text is going to be nothing be speculation. For example, if I remember, the irregular heartbeat can be due to potassium problems because your kidneys aren't working right. But it's not true for everyone. The key points I picked up from your post are exercising to failure several times a day, presumably every day, at some sort of advanced age? And sudden, protracted complete weakness as a result? I'd be in the ER immediately. Even if it's not rhabdo, that's not normal by any stretch. I've done some crazy workouts that left me feeling like I got hit by a car for nearly a week, but if you're at the 1.5 week mark and not getting any better there is real concern there.

Final note, I believe a simple blood test is all that's needed for rhabdo so it's not like you'd need to take extended time off of work or incur substantial cost. If you're truly destitute and have no medical options I'd take TOTAL REST, no workouts at all, get plenty of food and plenty of water and sleep a lot. Doubt there's much else you can do at this point.

Side note, regardless of all of that, training to failure multiple times a day is likely doing more harm than good. You get bigger and stronger during your rest, you're just breaking down your body over and over and can even get WEAKER as a result. I've been there, I've seen my bench press go DOWN from too much training. Even if you end up being fine, consider a better training program. At the very least you're looking at future overuse injuries and lack of progress with your current system.

L1zardQueen

I would get checked out by a doctor. I'm sure your employer would want you to.

canadianlbs

AlwaysKeepFit wrote: »

Without taking time off work for medical examination, is there any way to get some kind of corroboration of the possibility of ER

well, uh . . . so if the internet told you you might have it, you'd go see a doctor?

you might have it. go see a doctor.

more seriously, go see a doctor. chances are if you were gonna die of something like that, you would have done it by now (i have no qualifications whatever for making that guess). but you should still go see a doctor.

rybo

Go to a doctor

stanmann571

1. Go to a doctor
2. Once you've recovered--stop working to failure every day. Leave 2-3 in the tank.

jgnatca

Or it could have been a stroke.

AlwaysKeepFit

Point taken. I have to find a way to schedule an appointment (probably better with the sports medicine doctor than a family doctor). I'm not adverse to seeing doctors, it's just that, yes the employer would want a healthy employee, but the deadlines...the all the dynamics that create the threats to the deadlines...they don't change just because one is permitted to take time off. In fact, the latter is never the issue. I guess it's kind of getting clear why I enjoyed using pushups/pulldowns as a stress relief valve whenever needed, and didn't care about bulging muscles. Be that as it may, appointment to be arranged.

Funny thing is, I feel perfectly fine otherwise. Better than in years, likely because I'm getting sufficient sleep since I stopped, partially because of the time liberated, but also because of other measures taken to address some disruptive factors (just before the problem occurred, I had a particularly bad bout of sleep deprivation because of noise). I had also been in the practice of eating less because of the caloric imbalance (a surplus) that was accumulating over the years, which I'm still doing -- that change has contributed so much to alertness and wakefulness. I doubt that the diet change might have contributed because it's feels so healthy. The sleep deprivation beforehand might have contributed, but that was temporary.

L1zardQueen

Your work is more important? Everyone is replaceable.

AliceDark

Are you in the US? Go to urgent care. They'll be open after work. Or, you know, call in sick and go now. Your employer (and their HR department) would rather you take one day off than seriously injure yourself and have to take more time off later.

AlwaysKeepFit

Of course work is not more important than long term health. It's just that I feel perfectly fine, so I wanted to check for some common knowledge about this kind of situation before taking time off. It's a real bummer not being able to rip off a superset whenever I need it.

As for being in the US, no I'm in Canada. Cost is not the issue, but Sports Medicine clinic where my doctor is, that's open during office hours. *When* the time is taken is not the issue, it's just the fact that it is taken (I don't keep my work hours down to a standard day, I do what is needed -- bad habit, and the work-life balance battle is something I've never won). But I have made the appointment after getting such unambiguous feedback on the situation. Thank you all.

canadianlbs

AlwaysKeepFit wrote: »

but the deadlines...the all the dynamics that create the threats to the deadlines...they don't change just because one is permitted to take time off.

tehy ain't gonna change if you drop dead either. i get you, but yeah. you can't do anything about an employer's unreasonableness anyway. might as well fix the thing you can fix.

hope it turns out to be something far less extreme.

AlwaysKeepFit

It has taken a month, but I'm slowly getting some muscular responsiveness back. Doing two sets to failure (that's just a handful of reps!) every other day. Not supersetted like before, so dialed back quite a bit.

Neither the sports med doctor nor the family doctor thought that exertion rhabdo was the primary suspect, but leaves me completely flummoxed as to what could cause such a breakdown in muscular response. In any case, I'm going to moderate (relatively that is). I suspect that I was borderline exertion rhabdo for a long time, because I've been repeatedly supersetting to failure for years, but never venturing far into exertion rhabdo territory simply because pushups is not heavy lifting (though pullups are, so the facts are inconsistent).

Having to exercise self restraint is a real bummer. I reach for pushups and pullups not for muscle development (as should be obvious from my habit), but for stress relief. It is the *most* convenient exercise. Now I have to find other less optimal ways.

canadianlbs

i'm no kind of expert on working to failure, not even in a personal sense (too lazy). but if you're missing the exercises themselves, you could try doing more of them and NOT going all the way to failure each time.

like i say, i have no basis for this. but plenty of people including me manage to do tons of reps at specific moves over the course of a day - if not in the gym with actual weights, then as absent-minded 'practice' outside it as well. and most of us seem to keep on tickin' with that kind of approach.

AlwaysKeepFit

Yeah. I guess that's a solution will need to try. Not the same as going to the limit and pushing against it (figuratively), but I don't want a relapse. Thanks.

AlwaysKeepFit

What a world of different it makes to load up on meat, fat, carbs, and vitamin C (oranges) after a workout. It's as if I hadn't done an intense workout at all.