REALLY bad instant headache during a heavy lift..

LakeMountD

LakeMountD

Doctor Science
Okay this has only happened to me in the last two weeks out of the 3 years I have been lifting but I was doing leg press with a good amount of weight (bout 650) and on the last rep of me pressing pretty hard I suddenly got an EXTREMELY bad headache that seemed to be focused more on one certain spot on my head the most and it throbbed really bad. Last week when it happened it scared the **** out of me because I could just see myself having an anyeurism right there lol. But it happened again this week and it happened a lot easier (I was doing less weight this week and wasn't pushing nearly as hard as the week before). Anyone ever had this happen? Both times I quit my workout early.
 
I've had this happen when I was taking too much caffeine but other than that, its never happened just because of heavy lifts.
 
interesting because both times i did drink a large cup of coffee about 30 minutes before I went and it was French Roast. I will try next time to go without it.
 
I had this problem during squats and climax during sex (don't laugh) for about a month, and the first time it happened I thought I was having an aneurism. My girlfriend (she is finishing up medical school this semester) said it was a blood vessel in the sub-arachnoid layer of my brain dialating. Apparently the squats raise intercranial pressure (duuh) and oxytocin causes cranial blood vessel dialation (this was a year or so ago so don't quote me). They went away on their own. I don't have a remedy, but they are not dangerous if they are the same as mine; sudden onset, severe localized pain, fairly rapid passing...Dim
 
Not saying this is your problem, but I had a similar problem and it turned out I had a mild disc heriation in the upper cervical vertibra. It can happen when you are straining really hard and the muscles in your neck contract hard under the stress.

Edit... It has happened right before blowing a load too.

Either way,hope you can find the cause and get a handle on it.
 
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I had the exact thing happen to me doing heavy leg presses. On the last rep I cocked my head forward and held my breath and pushed with everything I had. All of a sudden I had an intense headache and felt dizzy as hell...thought I was going to pass out.

After that anytime I held my head a certain way or did dips it would shoot an intense (I mean an ice pick rammed into my head) pain. Scared me bad. After talking to a physical therapist, she told me she thought I had strained a muscle that ran from the top of my back up my neck.

After a couple weeks the pain went away and no problems since. Had to lay off the workouts though because the pain was so bad it would literally lay me on my back.

Now when I do leg presses I always keep my head back resting on the pad and keep my neck relaxed.
 
This has happened to me also.. lifting and during sex .. headache Doctor called them exertion headaches
but couldn`t find any phyical cause. Gave me some pills that made me feel like **** all day long. So I stopped taking them... They went away in a few weeks.. Really scared me at first
 
i have had it happen with heavy leg presses - last rep straining real hard and prob not breathing correctly. looks like this is pretty common. Try to find something on the wall and dont move your head. works for me.
 
I had this happen in the middle of a heavy squat. Scared me badly. Blinding pain in the head running down the neck. Hurt so bad I was kinda dizzy. Had to stop the WO. I think it was a strained neck muscle or cervical vertebrate misalignment. Has not happened again.
 
wow, I've had this a few times during climax, its very localized, top right of the head i believe. It went away tho.
 
Got one of those headaches while squatting...

I was bustin my ass on squats, then BAM, I thought I was going to go down with the bar on my back. I just got it racked, then had to hold my head for ten minutes or so and still couldn't resume squatting. First and only time it had ever happened (so far). :frustrate
 
hmmm so it seems like a lot of people are experiencing this. I guess it is more common than we all had thought.
 
I have been getting that also. Whats weird is that when I really concentrate on exhaling on the way up, I get it much worse!?! Feels like my brain is gonna start leaking out of my ears.
 
Yeah this is strange. It is only when i do really heavy weight and really put my all into it. But it wasn't like I was going to failure. I still had a few reps left. I am hoping it isn't some sort of artery hemorhage or some scary **** like that. That is just what I need lol.
 
Same sort of thing happened to me while doing incline presses. Turns out in my case I actually tore some of the muscle in the side of me head between the ear and the temple. Thought I had a stroke or something, as the pain, and weird neurological stuff went on for something like a week. If it goes away, not likely that this is what happened to you though.

Good luck finding the answer, I hope it gets better quickly for you.
 
BP is pretty good. I did realize that large amounts of caffeine prior to workout made it worse so i have been drinking less. I am also breathing different on my heavy leg presses and although I can feel it coming on it never hits me like usual. I will just have to keep an eye out.
 
Most ppl experience heart attacks while sitting on the toilet straining out a bowel movement. Not pretty, but same principles apply to lifting heavy weights I suppose.
 
ryansm said:
Most ppl experience heart attacks while sitting on the toilet straining out a bowel movement. Not pretty, but same principles apply to lifting heavy weights I suppose.
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No ****! (pun intended).
 
diminuendo said:
I had this problem during squats and climax during sex (don't laugh) for about a month, and the first time it happened I thought I was having an aneurism. My girlfriend (she is finishing up medical school this semester) said it was a blood vessel in the sub-arachnoid layer of my brain dialating. Apparently the squats raise intercranial pressure (duuh) and oxytocin causes cranial blood vessel dialation (this was a year or so ago so don't quote me). They went away on their own. I don't have a remedy, but they are not dangerous if they are the same as mine; sudden onset, severe localized pain, fairly rapid passing...Dim
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Yes, this is true. I got horrible pain in the back of my head doing hack squats and later i got a cat scan and had an arachnoid cyst about 2 cm big leaking fluid... Nasty stuff
 
I know how u feel, i used to have a weird throbbing pain in the back of my head when working out, quit all the workouts short....i posted on some forums asking what it could be as i was scared shitless.

i looked on the internet to find that it coyld be a certain type of headache, or a pulled muscle back in my neck or something......it hurt really bad in one particular spot right in the back of my head.

got a reply on a forum from some dude saying hes had the same **** and found out that it was from overtraining........i took 1-2 weeks off voila! it has never come back.



EDIT: crap, i didnt even read the two post above mine......that sounds EXACRLEY like the thing i had. It happened when i did alot of stuff, not just working out.
 
Toilets are BAD

Toliets are bad for another thing - herniated discs. People sit down for a while, then reach behind to either grab at something they dropped, or to grab the toliet paper, and tear the disc annulus.

The moral of the story: if you want to have a healthy back and healthy heart, learn to **** standing up.

:blink:
ryansm said:
Most ppl experience heart attacks while sitting on the toilet straining out a bowel movement. Not pretty, but same principles apply to lifting heavy weights I suppose.
Click to expand...
 
I recently joined the club.... I thought it was from E-MAX LMG which has given me really bad sides (prostate/nosebleed), but maybe it's from pushing myself too hard... Right before climax during sex or while doing either squats or bench I get a splitting headache in the back of my head.. I have been pounding hawthorne berry and aspirin thinking it's a BP issue.. Whatever it is... I hope it goes away. And FAST..
 
Rictor33 said:
I recently joined the club.... I thought it was from E-MAX LMG which has given me really bad sides (prostate/nosebleed), but maybe it's from pushing myself too hard... Right before climax during sex or while doing either squats or bench I get a splitting headache in the back of my head.. I have been pounding hawthorne berry and aspirin thinking it's a BP issue.. Whatever it is... I hope it goes away. And FAST..
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You need to take a week off of all lifting. Its just going to hurt whenever you lift and you'll aggravate it. Sometimes people even need to take 2 weeks off from this.
 
Rictor33 said:
I have been pounding and thinking it's a BP issue.. .
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HEY! What did I do?




Not that I would kiss and tell .... :D



JK
 
ryansm said:
Most ppl experience heart attacks while sitting on the toilet straining out a bowel movement. Not pretty, but same principles apply to lifting heavy weights I suppose.
Click to expand...

I beleive that. I've squeezed so hard that my back has cracked before.lol
 
LakeMountD said:
Okay this has only happened to me in the last two weeks out of the 3 years I have been lifting but I was doing leg press with a good amount of weight (bout 650) and on the last rep of me pressing pretty hard I suddenly got an EXTREMELY bad headache that seemed to be focused more on one certain spot on my head the most and it throbbed really bad. Last week when it happened it scared the **** out of me because I could just see myself having an anyeurism right there lol. But it happened again this week and it happened a lot easier (I was doing less weight this week and wasn't pushing nearly as hard as the week before). Anyone ever had this happen? Both times I quit my workout early.
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I had this happen to me and it turned out after cat scans and other exams it was a pulled muscle in my upper neck which led to extreme headaches which often caused me to stop my workouts. The doc told me that every time I did a heavy set the muscle would spasm, causing the headaches.I had to ease up for about a month (especially on chest days) and eventually the muscle healed itself. The first time it happened I thought I was going to die it was so painful, it felt like something in my brain burst.
 
Ok sounds like a mix of a few things. This is what im experiencing.

I take my Liquid masterdrol / Green bulge and NO Shotgun. Head to the gym. Been stacking this for a month (Finihsing masterdrol cycle). I started jump roping. Once i hit a 100 jumps i felt like i got smacked in the head with a dumbell. It was an instant stabbing pain with throbbing on my left temple. It hurt so bad it went through my jaw and made my teeth ache. My whole left side of my head went numb from hurting so bad. I had to stop my work out for about 30 minutes just for the throbbing to stop long enough to continue working out. Scared the crap out of me, thought i did something bad. Well it turns into an all day headache after that (tolerable). Well since that happened i hit the gym 2 other times. 2nd time it hit me during the jump rope again and third time (Today) it hit me doing pull ups. Anybody got an idea? Its in the same exact spot each time (Left temple) extremly painful.

Thanks for any info.
 
diminuendo said:
I had this problem during squats and climax during sex (don't laugh) for about a month, and the first time it happened I thought I was having an aneurism. My girlfriend (she is finishing up medical school this semester) said it was a blood vessel in the sub-arachnoid layer of my brain dialating. Apparently the squats raise intercranial pressure (duuh) and oxytocin causes cranial blood vessel dialation (this was a year or so ago so don't quote me). They went away on their own. I don't have a remedy, but they are not dangerous if they are the same as mine; sudden onset, severe localized pain, fairly rapid passing...Dim
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I had both of these same exact problems...
 
It eventually went away when I stopped taking Stims and Juicy Juice.

I believe it may have been high blood pressure... as sex and lifting both caused it. ESP. During climax. Sometimes slightly before...with great intense pain thereafter... almost to puking.
 
cable626 said:
wow, I've had this a few times during climax, its very localized, top right of the head i believe. It went away tho.
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Yup! I have had exactly the same thing before. It seems to be aggravated by sleep deprevation, just getting over a cold and dehydrated, or high blood pressure. I just noticed that at the times I did have it happen those were the things going on. Scared the **** out of me though I thought I had a clot in my brain!

In all cases a little R & R made it go away
 
i experienced this on several occasions. On one time, it was so bad i went to the ER... in that situation, i was on lots of ephedra and the high BP was causing it, but i have also had at absurd, instead onset headache that occured during some forced reps on heavy incline bench. Felt like something popped deep in my forehead. instant pain and it throbbed like a motha****a. stayed like that for 2 weeks. the guy that owns my gym has been in the trenches for 30 some years, and told me it was a popped vessell, but not to worry about it.... so i didnt, and i'm fine.
 
Breath! Most likely its the blood vessel in the back of your head. I've had this happen when heavy lifting, proper breathing helped so my blood pressure didn't go so high. If I remember correctly its a common problem and not dangerous.
 
I've had this happen twice. I figured out later that it was due to holding my breath while straining to get that last rep up.
 
badbart said:
Breath! Most likely its the blood vessel in the back of your head. I've had this happen when heavy lifting, proper breathing helped so my blood pressure didn't go so high. If I remember correctly its a common problem and not dangerous.
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This has been my experience. Once I corrected my breathing I was ok - used to get 'em during squats and heavy leg presses.
 
For those of you that wear a hat during your workout it may be the problem, or at least contributing.
I finally found out that when I take my hat off while training the problem went away.
 
So if you were holding your breath during a heavy lift, your BP goes through the roof and a blood vessel possibly ruptures in your head ?
 
wow this explains alot this problem started like 3 days ago I thought it was the gym cuz I used to train in my garage but yeah its happened during squats, pull ups, incline, and during climax breathing has been able to decrease the pain next day in the gym gonna focus alot more on my breathing it really scared the ***t out of me
 
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