The Impossible Mile fitness challenge has become popular on TikTok and YouTube. But is it safe for you to attempt it? While fitness challenges can be fun, they can carry side effects you are not expecting, such as muscle pain, injuries like sprains and muscle spasms, and perhaps even medical complications such as rhabdomyolysis. Here's what you need to know before you do The Impossible Mile or any fitness challenge you see online.
What Is The Impossible Mile Challenge
While the creator of the Impossible Mile Challenge is unknown, one thing is sure – it's intense. This TikTok fitness challenge consists of performing these exercises back-to-back.
- Burpees for 400 meters
- Lunges for 400 meters
- Bear Crawls for 400 meters
- Run for 400 meters
Little rest is taken between each physical activity. However, working at your own pace is recommended for reasons that will be addressed below.
Obviously, you will need a track to measure the distance to cover in each event. One lap around an Olympic-style track is 400 meters (1,312 feet), so you are essentially performing each activity for one single lap and four laps total (about a mile). If your track is not this large, you'll need to measure how far this distance is yourself.
Each of the exercises used in the Impossible Mile Challenge involves the lower part of your body (the legs and glutes). This means your lower body will be subjected to tremendous amounts of physical exertion.
In the world of exercise, we call this the volume of exercise. Volume refers to the amount of exercise you are doing. With weight lifting, the volume is simply the weight lifted multiplied by the reps and sets you do (weight x reps x sets). However, with the Impossible Mile Challenge, your body weight and sets (1 lap each) will remain the same, So the volume is just the repetitions you perform. In addition, the amount of time your muscles are under tension is also a factor too.
Each 400-meter lap around the track will require you to do a LOT of repetitions. If you are not used to a grueling workout like this, you open the possibility of rhabdomyolysis.
Impossible Mile Challenge: Recipee For Rhabdo?
What is Rhabdomyolysis?
Rhabdomyolysis (Rhabdo) is muscle fiber destruction. When the muscle fibers break down, they release their cellular contents into the bloodstream. This quick release of sell content can lead to very serious medical complications. Many things can cause your muscle fibers to break down, ranging from trauma and some medications to electrocution and prolonged bed rest. I specialize in teaching people about exercise as a cause of rhabdomyolysis. Rhabdomyolysis is a very serious. Some people end up in the hospital when they get it.
Rhabdo Signs & Symptoms
There are several signs that you may have rhabdo, but the more common symptoms include:
Rhabdomyolysis the scary side effect of exercise you need to know about
- Intense muscle pain
- Muscle swelling
- Dark-colored urine (it looks like ice tea or cola-colored)
Some people may experience kidney problems, too, which require dialysis. There are many other symptoms too, including heartbeat irregularities and raised liver enzymes. In some people, the signs may be mild such as flu-like symptoms. However, it's essential to know that not everyone experiences the most common and well-known three rhabdo symptoms. This means it is often difficult to know whether you have rhabdo.
That said, one thing usually underlines many cases of rhabdo that I've seen over the years – performing a lot of unfamiliar/unaccustomed physical activity. This is why the Impossible Mile Challenge may be dangerous. If you have never performed exercises like those in the Impossible Mile Challenge – or as many reps as the fitness challenge requires – then, this is a new and unaccustomed activity for you.
The link between fitness challenges and rhabdo is not known. In the 1990s, a man developed rhabdo after doing 110 deep knee bends. In 2019 two young girls in China developed rhabdo after performing 1000 body weight squats.
Rhabdo vs. Muscle Soreness
In this quick video, discover a little-known tip to see if you are experiencing regular muscle soreness or something else.
How To Safely Do The Impossible Mile TikTok Fitness Challenge
Firstly, don't do this or any fitness challenge if you have orthopedic injuries such as problems with your arms, knees, neck, or lower back. Take the same precautions if you have vertigo, including inner ear disturbances such as Meniere's disease. In addition, speak to your doctor first if you have difficulties with your heart, diabetes, or high blood pressure. Basically, be healthy before you attempt fitness challenges.
Because rhabdomyolysis often happens when we perform a lot of an activity that we are not used to doing, the remedy for rhabdo is to start out slowly. Work at your own pace. For example, don't begin by running and performing lunges, bear crawls, and burpees for one lap each. Instead, consider these modified versions of the Impossible Mile Challenge:
- Pick only one of the activities (for example, burpees), do that for 1/4 of the track, and then walk around the track for the rest of the distance.
- Perform ten reps of each exercise and walk the rest of the way around the track.
- Perform each activity only for half of the track.
- Perform only one of the exercises each day for four days.
Slowly beginning a new exercise routine gives your body time to adapt to the exertion. This lowers the risk of rhabdo occurring. This also reduces your risk of injury. The important thing is to work at your own pace. Don't let some nameless person on the internet dictate what your fitness routine is like. They don't know you or your fitness level. Exercise has countless benefits, but like everything else, exercise can also have side effects if taken to excess. Be careful with the Impossible Mile Challenge and any other fitness challenge you see on social media.
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Joe,
I know you typically prefer comments under your videos, but like I said, I didn’t exactly want to write a novel under an unrelated video with my gratitude and the story of my rhabdo. I first want to thank you for the work that you’ve done. It sounds like I’m not alone in this, but I first found your work when I was in the hospital for rhabdo last August. I had never heard of this before, and like described in your book, this was the worst pain I’d ever been in. Your book was an absolute godsend, as my situation had really made no sense to me.
I did want to pass an element of my story that I haven’t seen accounted for elsewhere. Yes, I developed rhabdo in response to a workout, but for me it was very early on into what was a fairly light upper body lifting session. What I fully believed triggered it was the fact that I did the half-workout after multiple days of horrible sleep – near insomnia for 2 out of 3 days prior. That is the only element that makes sense as to trigger it for me, as I’m a young man and not completely untrained. Maybe I’ve just missed it up until now, but I don’t think I’ve seen sleep deprivation/insomnia listed as a factor that increases the risk of developing rhabdo. Regardless, I know for certain that from this point on I will NEVER do a workout of any intensity above a light walk/jog after experiencing any sort of insomnia or period of extended sleep issues. I’m fully convinced that the sleep issues was the determining factor for my development of rhabdo.
I know also that more work needs to be done in terms of perfecting the protocol for recovery/return to activity post rhabdo, but I wanted to send over an unexpected element that has certainly helped me and could be a source of further research. Given that my CK numbers in the hospital peaked at over 183,000 I was surprised at how relatively quickly I bounced back, and how few long term side effects I carry only 9 months post hospitalization. The ones that had stuck around were fatiguing much faster than normal, quite frequent urination, and being a complete lightweight when it comes to alcohol. Again, all things considering not at all bad given how bad my case has been. Last month though, I found the work of Dr. William Davis who has been studying and promoting the cultivation of yogurt/cultured dairy out of specific probiotic strains. I wish I could talk about this without sounding like I’m trying to sell snake oil, but after only three weeks of consuming yogurts made from L. Reuteri, L. Gasseri, and B. Subtilis I feel even better than before rhabdo. All the lingering side effects disappeared almost immediately, and the only thing that has changed has been the consumption of the yogurts.
I know there has been a huge “bro-science” push for making L. Reuteri yogurt on Reddit among weightlifters for its apparent effect on testosterone and oxytocin production, but to give a bit of anecdotal evidence I would say it has a lot of potential for post-rhabdo care. It worked so rapidly and completely for me that if I knew anyone who had rhabdo I would recommend it and even do the work of making the yogurts for them myself. Now, Dr. Davis certainly gets WAY over his skis when speaking on other elements of health, but I’ve been utterly blown away at the effect of consuming probiotic yogurts. I’d be happy to share more about my story and what I’ve done, but again I don’t want to send a bunch of links off the bat and come across as a snake oil salesman or something.
More than anything, I again just want to send a message of gratitude to you for putting the book together. I would have been much more terrified if I didn’t have it for hospital reading. I left the hospital with a sense of what to expect, and a good sense of a conservative return to activity protocol to follow. The work you did with that book certainly made the horrible experience of rhabdo much more manageable, and for that I cannot send a strong enough thank you.
Hi Ryan, thank you for sharing your experiences and what happened to you. I did a quick look and did find a report of a nurse who got Rhabdo after prolonged sleep which followed 30 hours of no sleep. I will be looking more into this moving forward and see what I can dig up on it.
It’s also interesting what you say about yogurt. Not getting enough sleep, can impact the health of the microbiome. I wonder if the beneficial effects of yogurt for the recovery of Rhabdo may be due to returning the microbiome to a more healthier state? This is something else I will be looking into and I appreciate you bringing it to my attention
Long-term fatigue experience is something that others have reported to me. How long that lasts I think various from person to person. I am so glad my book was of solace to you when you were in the hospital and I hope you have continued success with your full recovery.