All children do this I suppose, and it does the important task of stimulating the imagination and establishing a heroic ideal, or at least it did for me. I had a lot of comics as a child. I cycled through who was my second favorite, Captain America, Iron Man, Spider Man, but my favorite was (and probably always will be) the Hulk. The world needs heroes.

Some of those relics from my childhood are gone forever, leaving only memories. Some are still in my possession.

Today, like a whole bunch of other people, I went to see the Avengers movie. Lot’s of folks have been waiting to see this film since the first Iron Man movie was released a few years back. I get it.

I have been waiting for it for 33 years.

It was worth the wait. I am thankful that we live in a world with heroes.

I was also frustrated, angry, disappointed and frankly a little scared.

But mostly it was pain. My wife, who has known me for 13 years said she had never seen me like this before.

One week before I was supposed to compete in my first powerlfting meet, we were in Omaha and I was teaching an HKC at SG Human Performance for Mark and Nikki Snow. On Saturday afternoon my neck started to stiffen up. On Sunday I taught an RKC Level 2 prep workshop for 4 hours. By Sunday night, my neck was completely locked up and I was in severe pain. By Monday morning I couldn’t roll over or get out of bed without using my hands to support my head. I was in the worst pain that I can ever remember.

We made an emergency trip to a chiropractor Mark knows in Omaha. He told me that my 3rd cervical vertebrae was WAY out of place, but the muscles and soft tissue were so tight that he could not get anything to move.

On Tuesday, we flew back with me in a neck brace.  When I got home I took some of the pain meds left over from surgery. By this time I had begun to accept that I most likely would not be competing on Saturday.

On Wednesday, I went to see my chiropractor, Dr. Chad McClellan. Sent me for X-rays to rule out the possibility of a C2 fracture. Not competing on Saturday suddenly seemed small by comparison. I began to wonder if I would be able to go to Ireland in 4 weeks for RKC. Or worse.

The X-Rays showed no fracture, thank God, and Chad diagnosed it as a bulging disc. C3 had rotated and twisted to the point that the pressure on one side was pushing the disc out to the other side. This put pressure on the associated nerves, causing pain and lack of function, which in turn caused the muscles to tighten even more as a protective reflex. Which caused the disc to remain locked in it’s position. I tell you this sucks a LOT. But I believe it is preferable to a neck fracture.

I attacked it from every direction. Daily adjustments ( very gentle and very little movement, but movement nonetheless). Ice. Electrical stimulation. Painkillers. Muscle relaxers. Healing Chi Kung. Rest. By Sunday I was feeling much better and I went to see Brian Wilson for some acupuncture. I suspected that I may have some sort of energetic blockage as a result of the kundalini re-wiring process that was at the root of the whole thing.  After being needled I felt much, much better. Practically zero pain and the range of motion was greatly improved, but not 100%. Turning my head to the right felt like I was running into a mechanical restriction, which would make sense because while C3 had moved, it had not yet returned home.

Monday I went in for my adjustment and instead of the typical “popcorn” sound there was a hollow thump, like tapping a ripe melon. Then…..nothing.  No pain. I got up from the table and there was ZERO restriction in my range of motion. I felt as if everything were lined up the God intended and circulating completely free and unrestricted. I felt like ME again.

I mentioned to Mandy at one point that I wonder how many people daily suffer an experience similar to mine and go to the doctor, get the prescription for pain meds and muscle relaxers, get minimal relief because the root cause is never addressed and wind up either succumbing to a life of pain and dysfunction or wind up with surgery. I am certainly not against conventional western medicine. However, I encourage anyone to look at all the available options whenever a problem arises.

So what caused it? I still don’t know. There was no event, no moment of doing something, feeling something and thinking “Uh-oh. I just messed myself up.” I am convinced that I didn’t hurt my neck last weekend. It just decided to show up last weekend.

What next? Continuing with regular adjustments to keep things where they need to be. Mobility work-Brettzel variations with neck rotations in particular are feeling very good. As for training- I will ease back into it to make sure I am not going to yank anything out of place.

Standards exist in all the techniques of the RKC.

If you are an RKC (or HKC)  and you are doing swings, they should meet this standard. The video above shows what it is supposed to look like (with the exception of my head turn to make sure Iwas till in frame, sorry about that). Video yourself and compare it to the standard written below. If something you are doing doesn’t match the standard THEN FIX IT. Especially if you are going to post a video of yourself swinging.

From the 2012 RKC Instructor Manual:

Task: Swing, one arm

Condition:Swing a snatch size kettlebell back between your legs and then in front of you up to the chest level for 10 repetitions.

Standard:

1. The back is neutral. The neck is slightly extended or neutral on the bottom of theswing.

2. The heels, toes, and the balls of the feet are planted and the knees track the toes.

3. The working shoulder is packed.

4. The kettlebell handle passes above the knees during the backswing.

5. The working arm is straight in the bottom position.6. There is no forward knee movement (increasing ankle dorsiflexion) on the upswing.

7. The body forms a straight line on the top of the swing: the hips and knees extend fully, the spine is neutral.

8. The kettlebell forms an extension of the straight arm at the top of the swing.

9. The biomechanical breathing match.

10. The abs and glutes visibly contract at the top of the swing.

11. The kettlebell floats momentarily on the top of the swing.

Check it out HERE.

A phrase that I initially head from Master RKC Dan John is “Does your behavior match your goal?” It makes sense that if we want to accomplish something then the things we do, day-to-day should line up with getting to that accomplishment.

I get a lot of questions about what to do/not do or eat/not eat in order to get stronger or get leaner. The longer I am in the business I am in, the more I believe that what comes out of your mouth is more important than what goes in it. Calling yourself names (“I’m old/fat/weak/last/stupid, etc”), saying bad things about yourself ( “Knowing me, I’ll mess it up”) and verbally beating yourself for not doing well (“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I just can’t stay on track”)are harmful behaviors. If your goal is to improve, then that behavior most certainly does not match the goal. Think of it this way: Would you tolerate another person treating you that way? Would you be friends with someone who talked to you/treated you that way?

Whether realized or not, the things we say to and about ourselves are a reflection of our core values.

Sean Greeley turned me on to the concepts of developing core values. His was specifically a business exercise, but Sean also pointed out to me that if the core values of the business do not line up with the core values of the owner, the business has already failed. What are core values? They are statements that define the “should” and “should not” of your decision making process. We all have them, whether we put them together consciously and to our benefit is a different story.

Very often people live their lives with no thought to creating a clear set of core values. How do you make decisions then? Or what if you “believe” something and act in opposition to that belief? Do you really believe it?

The ONLY way success can be attained is if our actions line up with our core values. Did you ever wonder why poor people who win the lottery often wind up in just as bad or worse shape than before they won? Because their core values do not line up with being abundant and truly wealthy.

Or what about people who yo-yo back and forth between being fit and being overweight? Like winning the lotto, you can fake your way to losing weight and appearing healthy for a while, but if your core values are self-destructive and you don’t change them, you will return to your bad habits, because they are what you truly believe and how you identify yourself.

Something else to consider- if someone is in the business of helping others get fit, healthy, strong, lean or otherwise “better” and their primary marketing strategy is talking about how much everyone else sucks compared to them, where do you think their core values lie? Are they coming from a place of truly wanting to help or from a place of insecurity?

Everyone has a set of core values by which they conduct their lives. Some are well thought out, some are just random collections of ideas with no consistency or purpose.

What are YOUR core values?