Don’t be afraid of your chiropractor. It just might help your Karate.

For many years, I have had a fear of chiropractors (and doctors in general but that’s a different story) from people telling me horror stories about how they knew someone who knew someone who was hurt or even crippled by going to the chiropractor. These were all good people who were looking out for my best interests at heart.

After three years of taking Shotokan Karate and not being able to side thrust or roundhouse kick much higher than knee level, doing many stretching movements, reading many stretching articles and books and talking to other Karate students, I felt it was time to find out if there was some physical reason for my limited kicking ability. My Sensei, Sensei Noia, suggested that I see our team chiropractor, Dr. Pusateri. Sensei Noia assured me that he had been seeing him for years and that it would be a idea for me to at least let him evaluate me.

I made an appointment and ended up seeing Dr. Pusateri early one Friday morning. I was a little nervous but also anxious to see him to find out if there was any chance of me throwing a decent side kick or if I should just concentrate on sweeps and knee high kicks.

After close to two hours with Dr. Pusateri, he found that many of my muscles on my right side were not working properly and best of all, he was able to take my leg mobility from less than 45 degrees to near 90 degrees by the time I left his office.

I visited him twice since then and each time there has been an improvement in my side kick height, my balance and even my stances have improved. He also gave me very specific stretching exercises along with a couple of core exercises to help improve my kicks even more. Being that he is a sports doctor helped my ease my mind and him giving me exercises to do at home tells me that he is concerned about my improvement.

I am not saying that going to chiropractor will work for everyone but if you have an issue that is impacting your Karate training, the chiropractor might be the key to opening new doors for you. Just make sure that if you do go to see a chiropractor, try get some references or at least talk to others who have seen him or her and do not just pick some random doctor out of the phone book.

Below is the link to my workout blog that has a little more information about my visit to the chiropractor if anyone is interested.

More info at shotokanplanet.org