On my fourth rep of deadlifts during one of my final sets yesterday, I brought the weight to the ground. Upon touching the ground–really a bit of smash–a headache began to emerge. It slowly onset but within 30 seconds was fairly acute, making me sit there for a good 2 minutes prior to it dissipating. I was very conscious, talking with my daughter the whole time, but in quite a bit of pain for a minute. I didn’t seem dizzy, but it felt like a ton of pressure surging through (to use technical terms) my lower skull and upper neck. I finished my lifting work for the day; it didn’t affect my bench, but came on to a far lesser intensity during the 6-8 reps of my tempo squats. Truth is, I’ve run into something like this before about a year ago while, ahem, making love to my wife, and indeed it set in again in precisely this way later that day (sorry for the detail but it seems important), so I wasn’t too terribly worried about it. I’ve heard these called sex, or exertion headaches. But I’m wondering (1) if this is something serious enough that I ought to see a doctor in person, whom I fear will simply tell me to stop lifting for a month, rightly or wrongly; (2) if that doctor might be correct; or (3) whether I should de-load to a weight and rep-range that doesn’t hurt so as not to detrain too much and get back on the Bridge (I hit week 4, high intensity next week) ASAP? I sincerely appreciate any thoughts or other options.
I had also been drinking coffee since I was working out in the morning, and I immediately linked the two together by way of non-scientific, free-associaiton. If I can dispel this belief, I’m happy to do so as I don’t look forward to caffeine withdrawals. If this is something I need to consider, I will do so.
I tend to get similar headaches like these, except they only happen to me during the press. They do not cause me any other problems and I obviously do not consider them to be a reason to stop lifting in my case.
However, I unfortunately cannot give you specific advice about your headaches. If they are concerning to you, or are worsening, you can certainly get an evaluation done. If they are deemed to be benign exertion headaches, you may find that they simply improve with time, or you may need to make some training modifications to avoid them or reduce their severity.
Thank you. It seemed to me that the headaches were emerging from an extreme tightness in my traps and neck, stemming from the deadlift slam (an awesome name for a rock festival, by the way). I got another one bad after trying some chins two days later, so I took a chance and saw a chiropractor, which I’ve never done before. Whether placebo or real, the adjustment seems to have helped, if not merely relaxing these muscles a bit. I’m taking it easy for a week, doing LP volume at RPE 7 so as to not detrain too much (no headaches at this level). I’ll jump back into week 4 of the Bridge next week as written, hopefully getting back to those gains by embracing the misery of volume deadlifts and tempo squats–cruel work after only knowing LP
This is interesting. I don’t get headaches but I have experienced some weird sensations when pulling near my 1rRM on dead lifts. I listen to music when I lift like most of us. Several times when pulling near max loads, I’ve experienced weirdness like the music seems to slow down i.e. “warp” and I get this weird sensation in body. I’m not “blacking out”, but it’s like all the effort of the pull dulls everything else for a split second. Have you ever experienced that?
I have had a come and go headache for the past like 2 weeks. I feel it sometimes during my manual labor job and during my workouts if I hold my breath really hard and long. I try to be mindful of my valsalva maneuver, not overly creating too high of blood pressure in the head. I think what caused it was starting my job in the 90+ degree weather combined with my lifting (temperature/sun intensity and working with my head at or below my waist seems to start it up). Might be getting better but definitely not worse. I have gotten this before also, but it went away in like a week (when I was in school and not doing outside physical work/activities).
Happens to me too, more so on overhead press. It’s like the weight is so heavy that you’re warping the spacetime continuum, pretty neat feeling. I assume it’s just a harmless side effect of acutely very high blood pressure levels in your head, and is probably the beginning phase of blacking out or fainting.
