British journal of sports medicine
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A group of 129 subjects (67 men and 62 women) experiencing sports headache was established using a questionnaire. A wide range of information was gathered, focusing on the mode of onset, time course, characteristic features and associated symptoms of sports-related headache. Criteria for the varieties of sports headaches were established using head trauma and then migraine to divide subgroups of sports headaches. ⋯ Effort-exertion headache was the most common type of sports headache. Although effort-exertion headache could be separated into subjects who had an acute severe headache induced by anaerobic exercise (exertion headache) from those having a substantial headache lasting hours initiated by aerobic exercise (effort headache), most subjects with effort-exertion headache in this study appeared not to fall into any discrete subgroups. Trauma-related headaches were experienced mainly by men in contact sports, while women more commonly had non-trauma-related headache in running and jogging.