Sharp pulsing pain in back left of skull during training

Hi,

During slow dips, the back of my head has been cramping up (it feels really strange) and a blood vessel in the back left of my skull begins hurting very intensely and beating very hard. The sensation lasts for a few minutes after I stop and slowly fades. This has happened two times, and I thought it was just because I was doing the dips really slowly and I was tensing my neck up too much.

But it happened again this morning during kata practice. I was crouched down and jumped up and the pain just skyrocketed out of nowhere. The pain was so intense that I had to crouch and message the back of my head in my hands for a few minutes before it mostly went away. It lingered for at least 30 minutes, though, and worsened whenever I did too much movement.

I'm very concerned because it prevented me from completing my training session and it seems to be getting worse. I am researching it a lot right now, but if any of you have any similar experience with this, please let me know asap!

Thanks

Patrick I had a similar experience awhile back doing some barbell bent rows. I must have had my head in a poor position misaligning my cervical spine for a second and I had what felt like a monster charlie horse on the bottom left side of my skull where the trapezius attaches.

What fixed it was having my girlfriend take a rolling pin and literally roll out both my traps from my shoulders all the way to the base of my skull every night for a week or so. I also used a lacrosse ball placed between a wall and the area at the base of my skull where the initial injury occured to try and really dig deep into that tissue and loosen it up.... but do the other side as well if you try it.

Interestingly enough at this past may seminar I was talking with Kit Laughlin after a particular shoulder stretch that caused some pain in my neck and under my clavicle. Turns out my scalenes on the left side of my neck were tight causing a strange pain that seemed to terminate near the base of my skull and down under my clavicle. Some stretching and manual palpatation of the scalene muscles has helped alot. Scalene tightness can cause some aggravating pain in strange places... could be worth checking out as well.

-John

Thanks, John! I will try doing some of that asap and see how I feel during training tomorrow.

Hey no problem! I forgot to mention... but I'm sure you already know... that a good warmup with some neck/trap/shoulder prehab/stretching before tearin' it up will help as well!! I'm ever more vigilant about my form and making sure things are kept properly aligned these days especially when my primary movers are getting weaker towards the end of my workout!

Take care and good luck!

-John