Rhabdomyolysis at Iowa

There's a lot of things I want to write about but when things are in the news, it seems more appropriate and relevant to go off of that.  The breaking news last night came from the University of Iowa, where 12 football players developed cases of "exertional rhabdomyolysis".  Apparently, these athletes were participating in the football team's winter workouts.  A bunch of athletes coming down with muscle soreness after a winter workout isn't that rare. Many of them probably took it relatively easy or completely rested over their holiday break and jumped into a high level strength training session.  However, this case caught my eye as a bit strange.  First, rhabdomyolysis is not regular muscle soreness or DOMS.  Rhabdomyolysis is rare and is a very serious condition that can cause kidney damage and other serious complications. It was actually discovered during World War II in bombing victims that had muscles crushed. Over 70 years, there has been extensive research so I won't go into all of the details but you can read more about it here.  Secondly, this past fall, 19 members of a high school football team in Oregon were stricken with the same disease.  Within 6 months, 2 football teams have had several young, healthy athletes suddenly develop a very serious muscle condition.  After the first scenario there was some debate about if creatine supplementation was a factor.  It appears that the jury is still out on that one. I'm guessing there will be more investigating about what exactly is causing this now that a second case has occurred.  I'll keep an eye on it but if you have more information or research please share it with us all in the comments.

While I am definitely interested in the findings there's a few other things going on here.  Nowhere in these articles is "Athletic Training" or "Athletic Trainer" mentioned.  As someone who has worked Div. 1 football, I can assure you that this directly affects the Athletic Trainer.  When these football players were having trouble walking, who do you think was getting called at midnight or later? The Athletic Trainer. Who do you think is visiting these guys in the hospital and contacting their families? The Athletic Trainer.  A lot of these issues they are likely dealing with in Iowa today falls under the area of the hypothetical course I want to teach some day, The Things They Don't Teach You in College. 

One thing that this originally made me think of was my old medical terminology class.  It was something I reluctantly decided to take as an elective but it has proved useful time and time again. In this case, Lysis = breakdown and Rhabdomyo = striated muscle.  If you're a student reading this, I can't encourage you to take a medical terminology course enough.  It's helped me figure a lot of things out as a trainer and answer a lot of questions on Jeopardy!

1/27/11
Here is the latest: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=6065314

Sounds like they are going to try and blame the Strength & Conditioning staff for the workout. The workout has been reported by the players themselves to be 100 squats at 50% of their max and then pushing sleds. Is this a difficult workout? Yes, but don't kid yourself to think that this is out of the ordinary in high level collegiate athletics.  If it was just one case I might believe this to be a "freak" occurrence. 13 cases makes it seem that there is still something else playing a big role in this.