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The funny thing is I checked the spelling of LBBS several times in that post to make sure I didn't start this exact conversation!

Well this exertion headache issue has disrupted my training a bit obviously. I decided to take most of last week pretty easy. I got an hour-long deep tissue massage and it was like torture. The therapist was good, had done a lot of years at AFL footy clubs. He said my traps and lower back were basically like concrete, had so much tension built up in them from training the last few years. He really worked out the trigger points and also did some dry needling in my glutes. He also said the annoying pain in my glute/ham was probably just tight lower back/glute medius muscles pulling on it. When he pushed hard on my left glute medius I could feel it radiating down my leg where the pain was so he's probably right. It was absolute hell though, getting all the sore spots worked on, but felt good afterwards, especially glute/ham pain.

Anyway I felt pretty good, so once I'd recovered from the beatdown he gave me I decided to try out a light track/gym session. Unfortunately I started to feel the headache come on after a few sets of pogos so I'm not ready yet. It went away very quickly but it seems at the moment any strong exertion effort will bring it on again so I need to rest more. I've read a lot of different BB forums and it seems like a very common thing: it's usually a squat/bench press movement that does it. These threads in particular have some good discussion:

http://board.crossfit.com/showthread.php?t=58659

http://community.myprotein.com/bodybuilding/34668-exertion-headache-squatting.html

Given I know I'm all-clear in terms of nasty brain stuff (thanks to a $350 CT scan that lasted 30secs), I'm pretty sure it's a combo of tight neck muscles and increased blood pressure from all the maximal squatting I've done over last 2-3 months that eventually leads to slight blood vessel damage in the neck/occipital muscles, which causes a headache. I've just got to take time off and let it heal like any other injury. Maybe 2-3 weeks, which sucks, but I just can't do anything at the moment, it's really annoying. Once I'm past it though it shouldn't be a problem, gonna make sure to keep a check on not just the tight muscle groups in my legs but also all over, and also proper breathing and not going near failure every time I squat. I might also finally incorporate some front squatting to give my shoulder/neck muscles a break from the bar. Frustrating to have to rest as I'm in a really interesting phase of my training (low BW, good relative strength, high jumps atm without much explosive plyos yet). But I don't want to have to take paracetamol before every gym session either so...

Few year ago I had my vert measured on dynamometric platform @ University of Physical Education in Warsaw (friend of mine was taking some measurments for his master degree). I was restricted to keep my hands on the hips and my score was  16'' while my wall measurements was 23''. Also no one jumped higher than 24''. So when you match athlets, advanced measuring systems, and sport scientist you can expect strangest things

Well they didn't mention what they used for testing so I guess whatever they used could have underestimated their vert. But even so, these guys had an average of 14 inches, which seems ridiculous given their background and physical attributes (low bf% and sprint times). It's just weird that I've read a few papers now that seem to report really low SVJs for athletes you'd expect to be high.

trigger point release/dry needling are worth a look. probably a significant amount of woo, as with chiropractic, but without the risk of them herniating a disc in your neck.

Definitely. I'm gonna book in with a deep tissue therapist guy who does all that stuff next week and just get him to work the living hell out of me. Can't get freaking headaches every time I squat. Also, what's woo? Lol.

Well I was planning on doing some more SVJs this past weekend but on Thursday night I got a fucking exertion headache doing some stretching. Really hurt for about 15mins, then just kind of lingered over the next few days. I actually think I got a mini-exertion headache on the last rep of the last set of squats on Thursday but wasn't anything too bad. Then of course later I pushed it a bit too far and it struck me hard. I'm almost certain it was a combination of:
- holding my breath on the last rep (stupid)
- craning my neck on the last rep (even more stupid because LBSS already pointed it out)
- tight shoulder/neck muscles

So I took a few days off, did a light session today and feel a little better, although kind of felt it a bit later. Might look into getting a really good sports massage (probably long overdue) or maybe even chiro neck adjustment (read that it can help with exertion headaches).
 
Gym:

Foam roll warmup/activation

Squat: Warmup, 1x8@90kgs, 2x5@110kgs (easy, focusing on keeping head neutral and inhale-exhale on eccentric/concentric)

Random light UB

Calves

BW: 76.5kgs

Gym:

Foam roll warmup/activation

Squat: Warmup, 1x6@70kgs, 1x3@120kgs, 1x6@132.5kgs  (for full squat, 2.01xBW)

GHR: 3x5@BW --> easy, just getting back into it. The new GHR is better but harder as there's more of a downward angle.

Ran out of time for UB/core

Happy to get this today, was really not feeling it mentally after a shit day at work but whatever.

BW: 76.5kgs (morning)

Looking great man. Just the type of stuff I reckon will help you a lot. 5.4 secs isn't that slow considering you haven't sprinted much. My bet is that you'll be sub-5 sec by the end of the year at least if you keep it up.