Double Crossed: A Review of the Most Extreme Exercise Program by Dr. Sean M. Wells

Author:Dr. Sean M. Wells [Wells, Dr. Sean M.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Wells Physical Therapy, LLC
Published: 2014-10-22T04:00:00+00:00

“Uncle Rhabdo” (from www.crossfit.com)

X-Company-Induced Rhabdo

Mr. Berger, the head trainer for X-Company, stated during an interview with ABC News on September 26, 2013, “We have articles in X-Company journal when we first learned about exercise-induced rhabdo” (http://abcnews.go.com/health/2013/09/26/X-Company-can-the-popular-extreme-workout-be-dangerous/). Furthermore, he commented on how the clown, despite the fact that it is grotesque, brings awareness to the topic of rhabdomyolysis.

Recall that Greg Glassman established X-Company in 2003. Despite nearly ten years of operating, his head trainer admits to the public that they finally “learned about exercise-induced rhabdo.” Glassman wrote an article in his X-Company journal titled “X-Company Induced Rhabdo” in October 2005, two years after establishing X-Company (http://journal.X-Company.com/2005/10/X-Company-induced-rhabdo-by-gre.tpl). In this article, Glassman does not recommend the monitoring of intensity through heart rate measures. Nor does he cite the need to use evidenced-based intensity scales such as the Borg Intensity Scale. Glassman actually brags about X-Company’s “potency.”

The fact that rhabdo was not apparent to X-Company trainers, the founder, or X-Company’s many departments reinforces the lack of human physiological understanding that X-Company personnel have; furthermore, it underscores how the X-Company organization may have been myopic and resistant to see a major side effect from their training as an “issue” until years later. Glassman reports on his website blog on October 2005 that five individuals suffered from exertional rhabdo due to X-Company. Again, Glassman, the founder and beneficiary of X-Company Inc., reported only 5 incidents of exertional rhabdo due to X-Company. In 2005 Glassman had only thirteen facilities; it’s been almost a decade since then and X-Company has grown to seven thousand facilities. What exactly is the prevalence of rhabdo in exercise and X-Company? One could, based on this growth relative to the number of people with rhabdo in 2005, estimate that 2,692 people experienced X-Company-induced rhabdo in 2013. Of course, this is a very rough estimate based solely on the number of people with rhabdo and the growth of the company. Other variables likely have an impact on these data.

Had more academics been involved, or if the organizational structure were founded on professional ideals, X-Company case studies and reports would have been published in national peer-reviewed journals. Publications in such large objective journals would have exposed X-Company’s educational weaknesses and promoted safe exercise and program modifications before others became exposed to potential injury. Recall that X-Company Inc. owns the rhabdo educational material in X-Company’s journal—why publish damning information about your business in a national journal when you can contain the public relations nightmare to your own “newsletter” journal?

Business aside, rhabdo can kill and the X-Company exercise regimen may be at fault. Dr. Robertson from Regis University highlighted how a fellow physical therapist succumbed to rhabdo following a X-Company training session. Jill Kloesel apparently had no warning signs of rhabdo. After her X-Company session, her arms swelled significantly and she admitted herself to the emergency department. In the emergency department her creatine phosphokinase (CPK) levels were so high that they could not be reported. CPK testing checks the level of muscle protein, or myoglobin, that is in the blood.

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