Denver Colorado Karate Classes Blog

Pulmonary Embolus and Sports Recap

Weight lifting - zero affect on the respiration
Karate - lactic acid seems to set in much faster now and I get out of breath if I have to do fast/repetitive kicks or hand strikes
Running - I attempt to run and after about 150 yards, I can not continue

In early November, climbing stairs made my breathing harder but after a 2 week karate layoff, that symptom went away and my karate endurance was much better.

November 26, 2007

After a two week hiatus, I resumed training and all seemed well during the warmups and the training lesson. Near the end of the class, we did some pad work and I started off with 10/10 front thrust kicks. By the time I got to the 15th kick using the left leg, I was getting real winded. It’ s getting a bit frustrating not able to do a 100% workout.

Monday, November 12, 2007

What else in 2007 for injuries: calf/ankle twist from skiing, back/leg sciatica for 3 months from sitting on a jet to/from Tokyo, twisted thumb that got caught in a face guard during sparring, left knee tendon that got kicked during sparring that remained sore for about 30-days and now a low grade upper respiratory inflammation that makes doing aerobic-type of exercise really difficult to maintain without getting out of breath. If I had to do the black belt test this weekend, I couldn’t do it wind-wise.

Tonight’s karate classes started off pretty good, the warm-ups were fairly demanding and I didn’t feel that winded. But when we paired up to do some kicks on the pads, after about the 3rd set of kicks (ten on each leg), I started dragging and needed an extra 30 seconds to catch my breath. Normally I would be 100% fine and not feel out of breath. We did some 1-2 kick combos such as front ball/side blade, front thrust/side thrust, round house/spinning hook kick, and a couple of more combos.

At the end of the hour class, I had no inclination to do a 1/2 hour private lesson. My lungs were really irritated.

Monday, November 5, 2007

We did some warm-ups that were a bit challenging and I still seem to get winded more faster than normal. Running outside is still a chore. After warm-ups, we partnered up and did our DM’s left-handed. I did all of them OK but on a few, I mixed in some right-handed techniques with the left but it still worked. Then we wrapped up the class doing some pad work. After class, we did some additional private training that included some kata warm-ups (kata 3, 4, 6 and pinan 4 and 5). After that mix of 5 routines, I was pretty winded but recovered fast. Then we moved onto doing 10-point blocking and applying block #4 into a practical application. This lesson took an hour.