What is this : extreme sudden head pain when training hard!

I experimented some different type of pain and injuries in my life while working out but this one is freaking and I don't know what it is!

Friday was my leg day, so at my 3rd set I went heavy and was pushing everything I had to get my last reps and suddenly a very violent pain in the head near the rear, so sudden it was like being hit with a baseball bat, it all came white for a fraction of a sec. It was like it something ripped in my rear hard. I stopped my rep and put my hands behind my head and begin to massage it, luckily I was seated cause the pain was real hard. After some time it withdraw, continuing the massage. I was even able to finish my training (stopped the leg press though).

When I came back home I had no more pain in the head, but my lower back left side was hurting a lot.

Took Saturday off.

Sunday it was Chest/Triceps : same thing, but a bit less violent at my third set on the bench press dumbbell, it went away after some time.

Today it was at my first set of chin-ups, but this time the pain was raising progressively only on the left side as I was getting harder the pain was raising accordingly. If I was to continue to push toward failure the pain would rise so much and make me unable to finish my set, even on small biceps exercises. At rest pain goes away.

WTF is that!?

Eric

Get it checked...could be something in your neck which could defer pain down your spine and back...or maybe a pinched nerve as it subsides when no activity....regardless what anyone tells you, get it checked as soon as you can.

Broken or ruptured blood vessel maybe? Honestly don't know but like razorsedge said, might be a good idea to get it checked. Maybe even a trip to the walk in clinic?

ive had that a few times but only on leg day and usually on the leg press...feels like a hot knife to the lower part of the back of the head....usually just goes away...not sure why it happens.
P

Most likely tied to blood flow given your symptoms. You may have trigeminal neuralgia, a kind of nerve damage. . Possible conditions range from sinus infection to bleeding in the brain and arterial blockage so nothing changes GO GET IT CHECKED OUT!

Thanks guys. This morning I could feel one of nerve on the left side inflated as I often had in the past.

It may be related to the leg press by the fact we (I) bent the head forward, stretching everything from the neck to the lower back while pushing like crazy (??).

I'm taking the day off, I'll see tomorrow how it feels, if I feel Ok, I will go slowly at the gym, I'll try a high volume/lower weight approach instead of HIT style training.

Eric

Why bend the head forward?

I dunno it's seems it's involuntary. I tried to keep the head straight but it's doesn't feel natural to me. It feel like it's natural to bend the head forward to arc the back for protection (I might be wrong), I do have 3 compressed disks (hernia) and carefully try not to pressure them.

http://www.musculardevelopment.com/i...sta_455025.jpg


http://www.fitnessatlantic.com/image...leg_press1.jpg


http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/imag...rich_vos_a.jpg

Eric

Rotate the view on any one of those pics as if they were standing and raising a load.

Any update Eric?

Tuesday I had the same heavy pain that came suddenly and lasted very long this time, left side only, I had head pain for many hours, each heartbeat was felt in the head for hours, so yesterday I took a day off completely.

I've talked about it to some friend on my ex local car forum and one of the guy there told me the same thing happened to him and after a few visit to the chiro it was gone. I've tried to look for a good chiro and/or osteopath but I'm relatively new in Ottawa so I don't know anyone of reference, I might simply go at the closest clinic, I want to find a good one that will not try to BS me with the usual 35 visits and make your spine all loose. I want to find a good one that can spot the problem and fix it.

It really piss me off to stop training.

Thanks for asking! BTW I have not catch what you meant in your other post.

Eric

I've had something similar happen years ago when I first started lifting. When I would lift heavy, especially on leg day, it felt like with every rep a pressure would build up in the back of my head then I'd have to stop because it literally felt like a blood vessel was goingto explode. I eventually saw a Dr, got a cat scan and they found nothing....the dr said this type of pain was apparently common among weight lifters. It eventually stopped happening on it's own, and I still to this day don't know what it was. All I know is that it was scary as f*ck when it was happening. Any updates?

My 3rd time it was like you described, but the first was really like being hit behind the head, all came white for a frac of a sec, like something exploded in my head, very freaky.

Yesterday I went for a walk and I was feeling each heartbeat in my left side of the head, not really painful though, not fun either.

For you it never happened again ? How long did it take to go away ?

I've just been referred to 'Marc St-Denis' in Ottawa, a chiro, I'll call him.

Too bad I had a good one near Montreal, but it would be a 4hrs ride back and forth, once is ok, but many time a week is shitty. Especially when it's close the week-end.

Eric

My earlier post was to illustrate how bent over some of those guys were.It might not be related but I feel it's best to keep all three sections of your spine relatively neutral.

I called this chiro that was referred to me, had an appointment today! He saw the problem and fixed it, along with 2 others!

He told me I would not like what he was about to do to fix the troubles (which was a joke compared to the pain I had at the gym, like 1-50th).

I had 2 cervical vertebrae tilted and twisted. When I described what happened he told me he never saw that happens (26 years practice) but clearly saw the problem while touching, he made me touch my neck at some pin point place and on the right side I had a bump, caused by the displaced vertebrae. He also found something wrong near the left scapula lateral border, I felt instant pain when he touched it and fixed it really fast, again he told me it would be painful, but it was nothing compare to what I've endured. And he fixed the pain I had in the lower back where my 3 compressed disks are.

All this inside 5 min.

He said it was really obvious what was wrong.

Since he's training himself, he told me to keep my head on the pad on the leg press, like you said cog. To keep all the upper really relax when working the lower.

He want me to go back for some photos, he want to see if it's related to a structural problem. He asked me if I had another chiro that played with my neck, I told him yes, 10 years ago and I stopped those treatment cause I was beginning to have pain, which I never had before in the neck, so he suspect it was this dude who fracked something and by the technique he was using (kinda violent), since he said the neck treatment should always be smooth.

Lower back is 100% mobile and totally back to normal. Neck is incredibly mobile now, like if he removed a ton over my head, it feel weird now in the neck, I think it's because stuff went back to where they belong. It's werid to be back to 'normal', must have carried this from a long time (?).

He told me to not wait and go back to train! :D

I'll go tomorrow since I feel really weird in the neck (but relieved).

Thanks guys!

Eric

Glad to hear everything is ok.Bet you were frickin' scared!

I'm gonna train tomorrow, I do not want this to happen again ever.

I'm really glad he didn't told me to stop for 'X' days! It's pretty hard to be super motivated and cannot train, + training make it super easy to keep the macros and everything under discipline.

Eric

Just to make a follow up, I did not had 'flash' pain since then, which is great, but the first week I had build-up pain in the head when I was beginning to train, some time the build-up was so high so ended-up on my knees, I was barely able to stand for a few minutes. If I continued to train about 80% of the pain was going away.

But I also noticed I was taking citrulline malate since about 2 weeks and I know from the past that NO supplements was giving me a bit of head pain, not the kind I got lately, so I took no chance and stopped citrulline malate. Then the build-up pain went away. Maybe it's related, I dunno, but I intend to try again Citrulline Malate soon to see if this is coming back.

Both thing in the same time was not fun. I'll keep you updated if anyone care.

Eric

Here is an update! All the headache I have since the chiro replaced the 2 cervical vertebrae is not due to citrulline, since I've cut it and didn't change.

But I went for a complete exam, x-rays, pain tolerance, amplitude, stance, etc... and as I often mentioned, I have lived with lower back pain for the last 20 years, can't do squats, standing curls, deadlifts and rowing barbell. I have had countless episode of 'lock-up' where I was unable to walk for from a few days up to 2 months in the bed.

So yesterday I finally got the results, I was really surprised to see picture of my lower back, even with all the pain I have endure, it's in much better condition then I thought! But I got a bad surprise to see the state of the cervical. According to my chiro those are clearly the cause of the lower back pain and the lately heart pounding headache.

As you can see in the pic, they are almost straight (you can see the drawn line that should be looking like that), 2 disks are much thinner then normal. So having barely no 'curve' have really taxing on those 2 disks and the lower back. It's like if my head was 3-4x more heavy.

He said this is usually due to a whiplash or something like that and from the look of it, it must happened about 20 years ago, the flash pain and the lately headache are just a signal from my body saying 'I'm tired of it'.

He said my tolerance to pain is extremely high, as when he tested me with his machine.

He said it can take about a year to re-form a natural curve.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y27...20120229_2.jpg

Eric

Well it is good you figured out what is going on. I think straining the head forward on the leg press could definitely have triggered the pain.

I stay away from leg press. It compresses my low back too much.

Wow it's funny cause you can do heavy squats and heavy deadlifts, where me only doing the movement with an empty bar can be painful and expose me to lock-up in 0-3 days following it. And last time I tried hack-squat I just locked-up right there, barely been able to go home. For me leg press, is like pretty safe, I've hurt myself only once on it, but to be safe I start very slowly, I warm-up with only 2 plates on each side, then increase the weight slowly and make 15 slow reps each time up to my 2 last working sets. So far so good.

And I'm keeping the head straight, it was not hard at all to deprogram that habit to a new one.

Eric