Incline Leg Press Migraine

First off, my breathing was controlled (as that is probably going to be on everybody’s mind).

Recently was doing high-volume on the Incline leg press, I felt an acute onset of migraine-like symptoms (Intense cerebral pain), yet was not sensitive to sound. This lasted for about 5 minutes and them subsided with time to now, in which I feel completely normal.

I would have thought it a high blood pressure issue, as there were no symptoms leading up to the onset. However, I am a bit concerned about both the neurological nature of this injury and some fear-mongering from my mother, who was a football trainer and immediately started worrying about concussions and cerebral contusions.

Has anybody dealt with an injury such as this before? And does this warrant a visit to the doctors? (I feel perfectly fine at the moment, it is the morning after a 4pm workout, but am worried about non-salient effects)

I had the exact same thing about 6 months ago. It happened when I was doing I rep leg presses. It went away and I shrugged it off, but then it happened again the next week after doing high rep hack squats. It lasted a lot longer the second time and really scared me so I went to the doctor. My normal doctor referred me to a neurologist and I had an MRI and MRA done to rule out an aneurysm or vascilitis. The only thing they found was a sinus infection. After ruling out anything serious, the neurologist diagnosed me with “exertion headaches.” He said it can come on all of a sudden, even if you’ve never had any problems in the past and it will affect you any time there is a build up of pressure in your skull. He said that if I take two Aleve an hour or two before my workout, I should be able to workout like normal.

Taking the Aleve seemed to help as I never had another problem with the headaches. I don’t do high rep leg press, squats, etc. anymore, at least not with any significant weight. But I’m able to work up pretty heavy with no issues. Then a couple of weeks ago, I noticed they started to come back, even with the Aleve. I went to my normal doctor and she said I had a sinus infection. I took antibiotics and I’m fine again. I’m thinking mine may be sinus related in some way.

Anyway, you should definitely get checked out and get an MRI to rule out anything serious. If it’s just exertion headaches, you should be able to control it with Aleve. It’s scary at first, but it’s manageable.

External stressors caused my exertion headaches. I got huge headaches, especially on leg day, that would last for hours. This occurred for a period of about 3 weeks. Found a way to manage my stessors and the headaches were gone as fast as they had started. Good luck.