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nychardgainer
New member
Was curious if any of you had ever experienced exertion headaches. Got one on Thursday. I was on my final set of deadlifts and on the last rep it felt like my head just literally exploded. Crazy intense pain for a good 20 minutes or so. It almost took the wind out of me it was so bad.
Given that this is my head and I do, albeit rarely, make use of what's inside of it, I made an appointment to go see the doc pronto. Diagnosis, benign exertion headache. I have a brain MRI scheduled for early next week to be sure, but he really wasn't concerned with this at all.
So, Saturday would have been my "Day 3" on Madcows Intermediate 5x5. Felt fine when I woke up, so I decided to stick with the workout plan. I did 10 sets of warmup squats with nothing more than the bar and the headache came back. Called it quits and went home.
Today (Sunday), I decided to try again. I made it through my squats. Felt a little pain, but nothing crazy. Got to my final set of 3 on the bench and on the last rep it came back. Not anything like Thursday, but its there. It originates from the back of my head/neck. Called it quits at that point and skipped my rows and ancillary movements.
I've done some research and from what I can gather this is caused by either a) some form of tightness in the neck/base of the skull or b) a sudden rise in blood pressure likely caused by holding one's breath while under heavy physical load. In retrospect, option B is probably what set this off as I'm almost certain I remember some breath holding on that last rep on Thursday. Today, however, I was extremely cognizant of my breathing and am positive that wasn't the cause.
Has anyone experienced something like this? I'm really bummed as I was going to start preloading cycle assist next week in preparation for my first cycle. And, I recently did a week long deload, reset some of my weights, and am two weeks in to what I was hoping was going to be a nice string of new personal records. I've seen some posts where people claim it took months for these to go away. I'm hoping like I've never hoped before that this is not the case.
I'm going to go get a massage tomorrow and have them focus on my shoulders, traps, and neck. Any other suggestions for what I could do to try to put this behind me?
Given that this is my head and I do, albeit rarely, make use of what's inside of it, I made an appointment to go see the doc pronto. Diagnosis, benign exertion headache. I have a brain MRI scheduled for early next week to be sure, but he really wasn't concerned with this at all.
So, Saturday would have been my "Day 3" on Madcows Intermediate 5x5. Felt fine when I woke up, so I decided to stick with the workout plan. I did 10 sets of warmup squats with nothing more than the bar and the headache came back. Called it quits and went home.
Today (Sunday), I decided to try again. I made it through my squats. Felt a little pain, but nothing crazy. Got to my final set of 3 on the bench and on the last rep it came back. Not anything like Thursday, but its there. It originates from the back of my head/neck. Called it quits at that point and skipped my rows and ancillary movements.
I've done some research and from what I can gather this is caused by either a) some form of tightness in the neck/base of the skull or b) a sudden rise in blood pressure likely caused by holding one's breath while under heavy physical load. In retrospect, option B is probably what set this off as I'm almost certain I remember some breath holding on that last rep on Thursday. Today, however, I was extremely cognizant of my breathing and am positive that wasn't the cause.
Has anyone experienced something like this? I'm really bummed as I was going to start preloading cycle assist next week in preparation for my first cycle. And, I recently did a week long deload, reset some of my weights, and am two weeks in to what I was hoping was going to be a nice string of new personal records. I've seen some posts where people claim it took months for these to go away. I'm hoping like I've never hoped before that this is not the case.
I'm going to go get a massage tomorrow and have them focus on my shoulders, traps, and neck. Any other suggestions for what I could do to try to put this behind me?
