Exertion Headaches

Ever heard of something called an exertion headache? I know very few people who have experienced this before, so if you haven’t, you should consider yourself lucky. In July, I pushed myself too hard in a training session with Mark from The Foundation Fitness. I was in the middle of doing sets of hack squats when I got my first ever exertion headache. At that point, I had already progressed rapidly with weight and volume, but on that particular day, we made too big of a jump. I’ve never felt a headache so painfully intense before - it was like a grenade went off in my head. I felt my temples throbbing and traveling down the back of my head. I was loopy for the next 40 minutes and it took a solid 4 hours for the headache to go away. The headaches were so intense that I would lay in bed because any movement would aggravate the headache more. Every time I trained after that for the next three weeks, it would trigger another headache, but on a bit more manageable scale. Any lifting motion that would make my clench my jaw/face or made me brace my chest were indicators that I would potentially get another exertion headache. This is the very reason that I always emphasize you should listen to your body - respect it by stopping before you hit this point.

Exertion headaches are correlated with training at a very high intensity, often performed to failure or close to failure. A forced dilation of blood vessels in the brain occurs beyond their normal thresholds. It puts pressure on the meninges (the small nerves that cover your brain) and they become extra sensitive. The headaches subside when blood pressure drops and the heart rate slows, but you will be susceptible to future headaches.

Our bodies are both so adaptive and fragile at the same time. After getting the initial exertion headache, Mark and I restructured how we trained for the next three weeks following. He kept a very close on what triggered the headaches, which were usually lower body movements (that made me brace my chest or clench my jaw like I mentioned earlier), but we didn’t stop training lower body. We focused on exercises using lighter weights, higher volume and slowed the eccentric movement down. We also decided to focus on my upper body more, with a focus on sculpting my back and shoulders. There are always ways to train around injuries, but let your body recover properly and know when to stop.

Below is the video (in the second frame of the carousel) of the exact set of hack squats that caused my exertion headache. I’m proud of how heavy I was able to squat, and while this caused an “injury”, I learned what my limitation now is. I’m also a lot more mindful of what my body is telling me during current training sessions to prevent something like this from happening again.