It started with three military candidates, all hospitalized after the same workout—just 15 minutes long. Burpees, mountain climbers, and a few standard military exercises. Nothing extreme, nothing that should have landed them in the hospital with rhabdo, right? But they were there, and one of them had a creatine kinase (CK) level over 100,000, at risk for acute kidney injury and dangerous arrhythmias.

The strange part? All three candidates told a story of intense hip flexor soreness. Why did their hip flexors always hurt. What was going on?

Were these candidates out of shape or was poorly designed and poorly supervised training to blame?

And then the floodgates opened in an untold story that made the Tufts lacrosse case sound all too familiar.