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Thread: Sudden splitting pain in rear right of skull when racking press

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2022
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    Question Sudden splitting pain in rear right of skull when racking press

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    Today I tried 95x5x3 on press (yeah, I know I'm weak), and had a long hard grind to lockout on the last rep of the first set that involved laying back for a significant portion of it. When I brought the bar back down and started walking forward to rack it, I suddenly felt a strong, acute pain in the rear right quadrant of my skull ("right" as in "my right hand"). It lasted for a few minutes, weakening over the duration. I'd been training for around a year, then stopped for 3 months, and resumed training a few weeks ago. I've had a momentary blackout halfway to the top of a press before (tried pressing immediately after walking it out without first cycling breath, a mistake I have made sure not to repeat), but aside from that nothing like this.

    It doesn't seem to have affected motor or cognitive function as far as I can tell, but I'm not sure what to make of it. It doesn't seem like an issue with my valsalva, since I've been doing it the same way for a long time (closed glottis, tight abs), and never had an issue like this. Or maybe it's related to how long I had to hold it to complete the rep? Agh, I should have recorded the set.

    I don't know what to do now. My intuition tells me I should wait to try more until I can have someone else around to help in case something worse happens. I very much don't want to experience that kind of pain in my head again - any idea what could have caused it? For the record, I did make sure to take a big breath before starting the last rep. Now that I think of it I have been feeling some weird little twinges for a bit around that area of my skull and maybe the neck in that area since I had to maximally exert myself to unscrew a whole-house water filter maybe 4 or 5 days back. This is my second workout since then. I don't usually get headaches or migraines. It's been about an hour since this happened now, and there's still an occasional pulsing ("throbbing" is too strong a word) sensation in the area.

    I'm 25, male, 350lbs, 6'2".

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
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    North Texas
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    Get a neurologist appointment. Never fuck around with an unfamiliar pain in the head.

  3. #3
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    Mar 2022
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    (Note: not sure whether the previous post went through, I had to sign in again when submitting and was redirected to a blank page, so I'll try again)

    Update: shortly after making the previous post, I went out and finished the session with another person watching. I didn't feel pain in that part of my skull, but did feel quite a bit of pressure. About 2 days ago I was lifting an awkward ~50lb object (toy electric car, you know, the kind kids can ride in) up a flight of stairs and felt mild pain in the area again.

    Also, I realized I meant 95x3x5 and not 95x5x3. I'm weak, but not THAT weak.

    Get a neurologist appointment.
    I did a less useful thing and visited a GP, thinking I'd probably need to be referred anyway. They concluded that it was probably not anything to do with the inside of the skull, and almost certainly not a big scary brain thing given the lack of neurological symptoms in the past week. They think it's a neck muscle injury, though attempts to test that resulted in no pain, and it doesn't really explain why racking the second and third set didn't have any pain, and moving the toy car did. They prescribed heat compresses over the neck, ibuprofen/tylenol for pain, and a gradual return to activity starting with half load and volume, which seems like changing one too many variables to me (and a set of 3 squats at around 105lbs seems less strenuous than walking up a flight of stairs...).

    My current best guess is that it's a combination of finnicky neck muscles / nerves causing occasional pain and me not being fully reacclimated to valsalva, especially ones that go on for some time (and since I'm re-training, the pressure is going up faster than when I first started). Related question: is there a proper time to "give up" on a rep? Is a rep that takes over 5 seconds to grind out a sign of bad technique?

    I guess the only definitive answers I'm going to get are by trying again and seeing what happens.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Dec 2021
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    Your doctors and staff work for you, not the other way around. If your GP's explanation doesn't make sense to you, are you happy with that result? Would you accept that from any other type of contractor?

    Are you in a situation that you can get seen by a neurologist anyway? You may not actually need a referral. If you do, then what could go wrong if you push for one? It's a risk analyst situation - what could be the worst outcome if it IS a neuro issue that goes undiagnosed? If you do have to persuade one or more parties for a referral, taking a risk-averse approach might be effective - it's certainly prudent here.

  5. #5
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    Mar 2022
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    Your doctors and staff work for you, not the other way around. If your GP's explanation doesn't make sense to you, are you happy with that result?
    I didn't think of the issues with the explanation until after the appointment. The more important part of the appointment, in my opinion, was checking for neurological symptoms and verifying that none existed... I think. I dunno, does "pain in skull in response to exertion" count as a neurological symptom?

    Would you accept that from any other type of contractor?
    If a contractor charged $150 for a 20-minute talk, and presumably would charge $150 for another 20-minute talk to attempt to fill the holes in the first one - presumably without changing the conclusion, since that would require admitting to being wrong and giving faulty information - then I don't see much point in paying that. Personally I find this kind of financial model - which incentivizes getting someone in a building as many times as possible so you can charge them over and over again - quite distasteful. Veterinarians have a similar model, in my experience.

    what could go wrong if you push for one?
    A lot of money that I do not have gets thrown into getting imaging done (without insurance ATM...), even though the likelihood of them finding anything is low. I'll consider it again if I experience the same symptoms again after getting back to training. I'm sick right now, though, so that'll come later.

  6. #6
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    Mar 2022
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    Just did a light session (150lbs 3x5 squat, 90 lbs 3x5 bench, 200 lbs 1x5 deadlift) and didn't feel any pain or pulsing in my head, went well. No press, though. Will try press at 92.5lbs on Wednesday.

  7. #7
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    Mar 2022
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    Did a full-intensity session today (205lbs 3x5 squat, 92.5 lbs 3x5 press, 145 lbs 3x5 bent-over rows instead of cleans on account of my body weight). I didn't notice any splitting pain, but after racking the first set of press I did notice a somewhat painful pulsing in the back of my skull that started after the racking was complete, worsened, and then went away, all over the course of about 10 seconds. The main two things I can think of that happen immediately before that are the bar being racked, and loosening my belt (it's the lever arm kind). For the next two sets I decided to hold off on loosening my belt for 5-10 seconds after racking the bar, and didn't notice any pain. Not sure if it's related.

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