A friend of mine came to me with a question that I didn’t handle well.
He stated that whenever he lifts with any degree of intensity on one set he gets an immediate headache that lasts the rest of the workout. In fact, sometimes he even has to stop the workout and go lay down.
I told him he might be holding his breath and not realizing it. However, I’m not so sure about this.
What is the general concensus. Has anyone else experienced this before?
All serious answers are welcome.
Zeb
Is it all lifts, Zeb? Or are there specific ones that trigger this?
I have the same problem when lying either flat, or inclined on a bench. It feels like a powerdrill trying to cut a hole in my forehead. I’ve only had to go lay down once. But it hurts like hell for a few minutes. I imagine myself having a stroke, or something.
Needless to say I don’t have answer, but would be very interested to hear one if anyone knows what causes this.
I’m no doctor, but this sounds potentially very serious. If he’s having these headaches during lifting and it’s not due to holding his breath then it sounds like a reduction of blood flow somewhere in the brain. There are numerous possibilities most of which are very serious such as an aneurism, ischemia, etc.
If it were me I’d stop lifting and seek IMMEDIATE medical attention.
Good luck and please let me know how things turn out.
My wife had blood pressure problem during her pregnancy with the same symptoms. Have your friend check his blood pressure and see if it’s spiking when he has this problem. If he’s on the high end and it spikes when he’s getting amped up for a lift, it could cause this.
hope this helps…
I had the exact same scenario happen to me a couple of weeks ago . I was doing dips on judo belts (looped belts hanging from a pullup bar , to simulate still rings) and a couple of reps before muscle failure , an intense pain shot up in the back of my head .
I tried to work through it and thought I could finish the workout , but alas , now any degree of intensity caused the pain to shoot up .
I decided to wait a couple of days . After that short break I resumed my workouts only to realize it was reappearing in lesser intensity , again with exercises that demanded more effort.
Finally , I decided to head to the chiropractor who immediately spotted the problem . I seemed that my back (especially my neck vertebrae) were ‘stuck’. He noticed a descrease in ROM in side-to-side movement of the neck (turning the neck from left to right) .
He did fix it easily though and after a weekend of inactivity I was free to continue with my workout routine .
So , bottom line : have a chiropractor take a look at him 
Hope this helps.
I’d suspect blood pressure, too. Could even be his personality type. The kind who internally “psychs” for a lift or gets anxious about it, thus increasing BP before the actual physical stress adds to it. On breathing, I’ve had to actually prescribe a pattern to get some people to breath. They just shut down no matter how many times I say “breathe”. I say 2 quick in through the nose, one forceful expulsion on the concentric (99% of the time)out via the mouth. But if you’re completely sure, after observation, that he breathing properly, I’d look at BP.
Is he on any meds? And what is the age and training age?
Best,
DH
Hey Zeb,
Funny, I was just reading a an article on this. Sounds to me like it’s worth getting checked out, just to rule out the scarier stuff.
http://aolsvc.health.webmd.aol.com/content/Article/53/61299.htm?pagenumber=1
[quote]mike_b wrote:
Hey Zeb,
Funny, I was just reading a an article on this. Sounds to me like it’s worth getting checked out, just to rule out the scarier stuff.
http://aolsvc.health.webmd.aol.com/content/Article/53/61299.htm?pagenumber=1[/quote]
Yeah definitely…
Also, be sure to remind him to disclose to his Dr. all the supplements he’s taking, etc.
Seems like he might have an elevated BP, but I have a hx of elevated BP’s as well but never have had a debilitating headache while working out.
Quick things to check off just in general are:
Rest
Stress
Hydration
Diet
Hope he gets to the bottom of it,
GAINER
[quote]rainjack wrote:
Is it all lifts, Zeb? Or are there specific ones that trigger this?
I have the same problem when lying either flat, or inclined on a bench. It feels like a powerdrill trying to cut a hole in my forehead. I’ve only had to go lay down once. But it hurts like hell for a few minutes. I imagine myself having a stroke, or something.
Needless to say I don’t have answer, but would be very interested to hear one if anyone knows what causes this.[/quote]
It’s anything that he is doing to failure, or very close to failure.
[quote]Disc Hoss wrote:
I’d suspect blood pressure, too. Could even be his personality type. The kind who internally “psychs” for a lift or gets anxious about it, thus increasing BP before the actual physical stress adds to it. On breathing, I’ve had to actually prescribe a pattern to get some people to breath. They just shut down no matter how many times I say “breathe”. I say 2 quick in through the nose, one forceful expulsion on the concentric (99% of the time)out via the mouth. But if you’re completely sure, after observation, that he breathing properly, I’d look at BP.
Is he on any meds? And what is the age and training age?
Best,
DH[/quote]
He is a young guy, early 20’s with normal blood pressure.
Being that young, if he doesn’t have blood pressure issues, perhaps some type of stress or strain?
By this, I mean that when you are fairly new to this, you might tense up a lot of muscles to perform a “hard” activity, when you really don’t need to.
If a lot of trap, neck and jaw area muscles are straining at max effort, it can lead towards pain.
I obviously don’t know, just throwing something out there in case nothing else seems to stick when you throw it against the wall.
Zeb,
Check this old thread out; I knew that I’d covered this a while back.
Very possibly could be Sinus related. I got intense headaches for about 2 years, it was really debilitating. Would happen most often when exercising hard or jacking off (Lol I swear).
When you have sinus problems, the increased heart rate can result in very intense headaches, It is so concentrates you can’t even move kinda headaches, right behuind the eyes. I think its a big possiblity.
[quote]CrouchingTiger wrote:
I had the exact same scenario happen to me a couple of weeks ago . I was doing dips on judo belts (looped belts hanging from a pullup bar , to simulate still rings) and a couple of reps before muscle failure , an intense pain shot up in the back of my head.
[/quote]
CrouchingTiger…The exact same thing has happened to me on several occasions, particularly when I am right up against failure. You described it perfectly…intense pain running up the back of my head…really debilitating shit to the point where I’ve had to shut it down for the rest of the workout. It has happened mainly on exercises where I am laying flat. If it happens, say on a Monday, it will “linger” with me for the rest of the training week.
Absolutely sucks. Luckily, it hasn’t happened in a while. I’m wondering if Coach Staley has any input. May have to ask him tonight on Prime Time.
[quote]ConorM wrote:
Very possibly could be Sinus related. I got intense headaches for about 2 years, it was really debilitating. Would happen most often when exercising hard or jacking off (Lol I swear).
When you have sinus problems, the increased heart rate can result in very intense headaches, It is so concentrates you can’t even move kinda headaches, right behuind the eyes. I think its a big possiblity.[/quote]
BINGO!
Just talked to the guy in question and he told me that he has been fighting a sinus infection! I am going to wait and see if this happens after the infection clears up.
I think that has to be it.
All of the comments on this thread were very helpful and much appreciated!
Plenty of good advice and I thank you all.
Zeb
Where’s the location of the pain? If it’s at the back of the head, it could be due to a pulled muscle at the back of the skull. This can happen when lifting your head off the bench during a bench press or if your head dips during a squat or leg press. Here’s a test: tuck your chin into your chest with your hands clasped behind your head and then push back against your hands. Does it reproduce the pain? If so, that’s probably the reason.
Rest and adherence to form when returning to the gym should do the trick. Also, learn to lift without tensing your neck muscles too much.