This has happened to me twice this week, Monday and Wednesday. On both days I go in and warm up on a flat bench (barbell). I do my warm up, no problems. Now I get to the actually set.
I load up 150, planning on doing 4x10, I get to the fourth rep and feel a slight pop in the bottom back right of my head and I get a terrible headache, tried to blow it off and went for another set and the pain got much worse.
I just went home and loaded up on tylenol all day monday and tuesday. Same thing happens wednesday and I’m still taking tylenol right now. What the hell happened? Do I need to see a doctor?
I think I had this happen once awhile ago when I was doing heavy sandbag lifting. It was painful as hell anytime I needed to lift anything heavy.
I went light on the weights for a week or two, didn’t bother seeing a doc, and it went away. I have no clue what it was, but it sounds the same as yours.
[quote]GuerillaZen wrote:
Breathe. I’d bet $ you weren’t breathing properly.[/quote]
Ditto. If you don’t breathe correctly, you can inadvertently perform a Valsalva maneuver, which can raise BP tremendously and pop blood vessels and alveoli. I remember Rippetoe arguing that Valsalva may be OK for lifts that require high intra-thoracic pressure, such as squat, since the load on the spine creates a compensatory pressure equalization, but this wouldn’t apply to bench press.
I have to say breathing is extremely important, however, even if he is holding his breath, HE SHOULD NOT BE HEARING/FEELING A POP IN HIS HEAD. I mean, we’re also only talking 150 lbs here… Go see a doctor asap.
I’d say see a doc to be on the safe side. We can tell you ‘breathe correctly in the future’, which is good advice, but you should run to the M.D. now, as a ‘pop’ followed by a headache sounds potentially serious.
One thing I would like to verify although not all that important is if you’re actually getting a migraine or simply a bad head-ache (which you shouldn’t normally be getting anyway though I sometimes do after a very intense session).
I am one of the many people who suffer from migraines and I cannot even open my eyes to look at a computer screen when I have one due to sensitivity to light. I have to lay down in a dark room and I only get up to puke until I fall asleep and it finally goes away.
Just wanted to clarify this because your doctor will want to know whether it’s a bad headache or a migraine and you should probably know the difference.
Monday migraine but wednesday was just a reall bad headache. Just got back from the docs and turns out I pulled muscle, gave me some powerful anti-inflammatory pain killers.
[quote]ImTheRealArab wrote:
Monday migraine but wednesday was just a reall bad headache. Just got back from the docs and turns out I pulled muscle, gave me some powerful anti-inflammatory pain killers.[/quote]
Do you know which muscle you pulled? I had pretty much the same symptoms you just described, did some poking around on the internet and some things said it could either be a popped blood vessel or a pulled neck muscle I believe. I just rode it out and it went away in about 2-3 weeks, but what a pain in the ass.
Don’t no what muscle it was, but when the doc gave it a pinch it hurt like hell. But yes it was either going to be that or a popped blood vessel… thankfully it wasn’t the latter.
[quote]ImTheRealArab wrote:
GuerillaZen wrote:
Breathe. I’d bet $ you weren’t breathing properly.
I’ve used the same proper breathing technique for two years now.[/quote]
Which is easy to say and I’m sure you probably do, but it is nothing to be defensive about. It is easy to lose concentration from time to time. It has happened to me. Same symptoms. Had to take a week off.