Today was our annual Kick-A-Thon against Cancer.

Every year, our club arranages a day where groups of Karate students come out and do a total of 1000 kicks and pucnhes to help people in our club and charities for cancer research and treatment.  This fund raiser brings in a good amount of money and really helps those in need.

We went to the first session of 12 or 16 total across multiple locations.  Sensei Noia lead the event at our location and did all of the moves with us.  There were around 40 people and everyone had a good time.  The time limit to do all 1000 moves is one hour but we ended up finishing almost 15 minutes early.  The group was really on today and everyone was pushing themselves to the limit.

I think this is my fourth Kick-A-Thon since I have been taking Karate and this one felt easier than all the others.  I was sweating but I didn’t feel tired out and I think I could have done another 500 moves or more.  I didn’t have any problems breathing and I didn’t notice and pains in my legs or my body in general even though I was really pushing myself.  I am glad to see that all of the classes and other training I am doing is really working.

After months, or years, of not being able to throw good side kicks, Sensei Noia suggested that I go see the team chiropractor, Dr. Thomas Pusateri.

I was really nervous about going since I have heard horror stories from others about going to chiropractors but since Sensei Noia said he was good and knowing that all of the champions from our Karate club have gone to him, I felt it was time to go if I really want to improve my kicks and stances. Also, he has been doing this for 28 years and was very reassuring that he knew what he was doing. He has also been taking Karate classes for many years so he knows about how the body should work.

He spent close to two hours evaluating me. He found that my right pectoral and latissimus muscles were not working and that my gluteus muscles were totally turned off. He was able to make some adjustments to my neck that brought the pectoral and latissimus muscles back online. He was also worked on my neck a little more to get my gluteus working again. He then tested the range of motion of my hips. While keeping one leg straight, he moved each leg out to the side. The range of motion was less than 45 degrees and my right leg was the worse of the two. He also have me throw a slow side thrust kick and the height was well below the height of this desk.

After some more work on my neck and digging in to my leg muscles and hip area he was able to get the range of motion on left leg out to 90 degrees and the right leg to about 80 degrees. He feels that I have a bone spur on my right hip from pushing it in class to much and he will have to work on me some more to get it fixed. I was also able to throw my side thrust kick above the edge of his desk by a more than a few inches.

The digging in to my muscles was a horrible pain but in order to fix things, it’s something that I guess I am going to have to get used to for at least a short time. He also gave me some stretching exercises and told me not to go ballistic in class right away.

The real test came during class. After a little warm up, I was able to get down lower in my front stance than ever before. The best part is that, since my gluteus are turned back on, my hips were able to open an close when I would block and punch like they should have been. The other thing is that my side thrust kick was much higher and my balance was better too.

Needless to say, I am more than impressed and am going to visit him again.

If any of you are interested in going to see Dr. Pusateri, his information is:

Applied Chiropractic Arts
1560 West Algonquin Road
Hoffman Estates, Illinois 60192
(847) 934-4144