No, this is a common theme I see. People who know nothing about exercise take real medical things that happen to people who massively overtrain and assume it can happen to a regular unfit person exercising for 10 minutes a day.

For the 3x20s intervals, the max effort of a person is far, far, below the max effort that, say, I can put out (as a trained cyclist). I strongly doubt the people doing this were actually pushing the 500W for 20s that I saw bandied in another thread. They're more likely pushing 200W and tickling 300W for a few seconds. This is still a high perceived exertion (though lower absolute kcal expenditure), so it's a good effort on their part. But they're unlikely to black out or cause major muscle injuries beyond feeling a bit sore in the morning.

The rabdo I'm talking about doesn't just happen to people that overtrain on a regular basis. It happens often to beginners doing their first workout at a gym being pushed to hard. But I agree, for 1 minute total effort it's probably not a risk. My comment was more in the general sense of giving untrained people high intensity workouts, especially in a group context where they take it too far (like crossfit).

> often

Citation needed. Which is the point of the person you're responding to. For an untrained person to even get to what is considered 'high' intensity in their first workout is not common.

I do all sorts of training with trained and new people alike and have never seen rhabdo in person. I know it can happen, but I think the stories stick out because it's so uncommon.

> Citation needed.

But no citation needed from your personal experience of never seeing it..? I think you're reading waaaay too much into what I'm saying.

Yeah. If you're saying 'often' then people who work out and/or train people a lot should have a decent likelihood of seeing it.

I know it happens because I've read articles of it happening. But the way people bring it up any time a fitness discussion occurs is a meme at this point.

My point was that it happens more with beginners, so an experienced not seeing it often is expected..

Btw here is a local source. Three people got it from a group session. The doctor in the article says it happens about 400 times a year in little Norway, and that the group most often affected is people that used to be fit many years ago, and then start off too hard.

https://www.nrk.no/nordland/innlagt-pa-nordlandssykehuset-me...

This is a common case I see of misusing statistics without really understanding what's happening. I can't read Norwegian but I'll take a stab at what's happened here (based on my knowledge of other articles and having 20 years of personal experience of fitness training).

- This wasn't one group session but repeated sessions of HIIT back to back (maybe even daily).

- There wasn't sufficient rest between sessions.

- Some of these were older (50+) patients.

The most important part is the repeated sessions. Doing a single session of HIIT pull-ups or sprint intervals on the bike aren't going to cause major muscle damage, even in an untrained person. Doing 5 days back-to-back, repeatedly going beyond failure (something Crossfit is notorious for), with improper form, are what causes the issue.

This was a new type of training session in that gym. One of those affected was a 26 year old, the two others ~40. I don't get why you feel the need to make up causes.

Most of what I read points out that it's more likely to happen to untrained individuals. It may be because they start to hard over multiple days, but that's not going against what I've said multiple times: that it's a high risk for untrained individuals jumping into high intensity training. _That's_ my point.

> that it's a high risk for untrained individuals jumping into high intensity training

This statement erases all nuance in the real world data and experience of anyone involved in training.

You need to differentiate between one HIIT session and repeated HIIT sessions without recovery. The former doesn't cause injury in the vast majority of individuals. The latter is known to cause injuries in everyone trained or untrained.

You also need to control for what the HIIT session is. If it's spinning on a stationary bike for 2 minutes, an untrained individual generates nowhere near enough force to then injure themselves. If you're putting a set weight on a bar and asking them to shoulder press it, that's self-evidently completely different.

Yet, in your argument, they're exactly the same.

I've never seen rabdo documented as coming from a first workout. Usually it's from overtraining 3-4 days in a row while being dehydrated, or it's due to an ultramarathon runner pushing through the pain on their 100 miler in a desert, or (much more likely) it's a car crash crush injury.