PT, 24, SNAPS her hip after ‘common gym mistake’ felt like ‘someone was tearing her leg off’

A PERSONAL trainer has warned of the dangers of a common gym mistake after she snapped her right hip bone - leaving her "crying with every single step" due to the pain.

Kristina Schmidt, 24, started incorporating barbell hip thrusts into her gym routine in an attempt to grow her glutes, after seeing her favourite fitness influencers raving about the exercise.

But after quickly working her way up to lifting 140kg in March 2023, the 24-year-old developed agonising pain in her right hip that "felt like someone was tearing her leg off".

At one point the pain became so bad that Kristina was left "crying with every single step" and was eventually unable to walk.

Kristina visited her doctor and had an MRI scan before being referred to hospital.

Footage shows her performing the high-impact thrusts that, over time, caused a stress fracture.

Doctors believe lifting too heavy a weight with incorrect form lead to the agonising injury.

After being struck down with blood poisoning when her fractured hip became infected, Kristina underwent surgery to clean the wound and needed a three-month course of antibiotics.

Now, Kristina wants to warn others about the dangers of "ego lifting" to prevent others going through the same ordeal.

Kristina, from Malibu, California, US, said: "I wanted to look cool in front of my power-lifting gym friends.

"The most I could lift was 140kg for eight repetitions and I would usually do two sets of that, but that was with horrible form and not properly engaging my glutes.

"If I'd been able to lift it up properly then it would have been impressive but I was just swinging it up.

"In January I was only lifting 110-120kg and then by March it was already up to 140kg, which in hindsight was probably way too fast. It was too much."

In March Kristina, who was studying at Hokkaido University in Japan, went on a day out with pals and started struggling to walk due to the pain in her hip.

Kristina said: "I remember going on a car trip with my friends and I couldn't walk.

"I was crying with every single step, my hip felt like someone was trying to tear my leg off.

"It was a horrible pain, I couldn't stop crying and my friend had to carry me into the house.

";Doctors said I had a stress fracture with small cracks in multiple places around the neck of my femur and hip joint.

"They said this was likely caused by repeatedly overloading my hip over time with too many heavy weights and incorrect form.

"The space between my hip bone and femur shrank so much that my bones were grinding on each other.

"I then got a bacterial infection that settled in my hip - the weakest and most compromised part of my body at the time - caused the synovial fluid in my hip joint to turn orange, and resulted in septic arthritis and borderline blood poisoning.

"I needed surgery to clean out the joint and after that I was on crutches and still couldn’t walk for weeks.

"I was put on antibiotics for months, which destroyed my gut microbiome, weakened my immune system, and triggered a domino effect of other health issues."