Neck/Head pain newb question (diagram for clarity)

Malakaibeats · 05-06-2009, 06:30 AM

Hello, I apologise in advance if I've posted in the wrong section but I had no idea where to post a question like this.

I've been training for a month now. As you can see from my stats, I am only at the bottom of the mountain and have a long way to go.

What happened is the following: I was doing the 45degree leg presses with 35kg and half way through my set I start to feel a throbbing neck pain in the areas marked in red in the attached diagram. The rest of the workout session I kept having this pulsating pain and started feeling nauseous, the pain developed into a headache and I finally had to take painkillers after the gym.

The following day (yesterday) which is a resting day, I still had some throbbing in that area and a headache because of it and took painkillers again, which solved it.

Today I was warming up before doing weights, running on the treadmill and doing perfectly fine and then about 2-3 minutes into it, I GET THE THROBBING PAIN AGAIN!! AARGH! I can't stand anything getting in the way of my training, I've got goals to achieve and really need to sort this problem out.

If anyone has any suggestions or opinions on the matter, I would be infinitely grateful. Thanks in advance.

Malakaibeats · 05-06-2009, 07:58 AM

No one has any idea? Is it such a rare workout symptom?

starting-big · 05-06-2009, 08:07 AM

idk maybe your pushing your head into the seat to hard when liftin. or your workin to hard and usin as much presure as u can handle which is causein u to get head aches
just an idea

CLK-GTR · 05-06-2009, 09:10 AM

i dont really know man but if you have upper spine/lower skull pain id get yourself to a doctor. by the fact it comes on during exercise it sounds like you pulled a muscle but you can get those symptons from anything from stress to a brain tumour.

ironwill2008 · 05-06-2009, 09:22 AM

You need to talk to your doc about this. Asking for what amounts to medical advice on an Internet site isn't a good idea.

diablo272 · 05-06-2009, 09:28 AM

After you go to a doctor, I recommend seeing a chiropractor about this. I had a similar problem (not due to working out, but from stress), and going to a chiropractor helped immensely. Basically what happened to me was that somehow muscles in my neck and shoulder had gotten extremely tight, and those muscles were pulling or pinching (I don't know the specifics) nerves that lead up and around my skull. When I went to see a doctor before I saw the chiropractor, she didn't know what the problem was but recommended I get a CT scan or MRI to check for a tumor, and she also recommended I see a neurologist, so you may also need to do that. But the most important thing is to see a doctor ASAP, then go from there.

Malakaibeats · 05-06-2009, 10:06 AM

Ok, thanks for the advice guys. I will book an appointment to get it checked out.

Update: I was reading a few things online and found that this might have been caused by improper breathing and posture during a set, which in turn caused my blood pressure to rise considerably and "trapped" some blood vessels or nerves in my neck due to the strain of the particular excercise I was doing (45 degree leg press). Just in case anyone stumbles on this topic and has a similar problem.

Here's a thread I found about it on another forum:

http://www.wannabebigforums.com/showthread.php?t=25955