Joint Effort
Members Mark and Saori Chambré get moving again with the help of The Spa’s Koichi Uesaka.
I couldn’t lift my left arm. I had to use my right hand to push it up.
The pain was severe and I couldn’t lift it past chest level without discomfort.
I was reminded of an injury I suffered two years earlier. I’m kind of a gym rat, and I was doing a shoulder press. I pulled something and had to go to the doctor. He gave me a steroid shot—three sessions. After about six months, things got better.
This time around, however, I didn’t recall doing anything to cause the pain. It just started. I was hoping it would go away, but it didn’t. It got worse. I went to a doctor and was diagnosed with a calcium deposit that was causing tendinitis. The doctor said shots weren’t going to work and suggested physical therapy. If that didn’t help, painful shockwave therapy would be needed.
I had already started working with Koichi Uesaka, a therapist at The Spa, to prepare for knee replacements, so I wanted to try him for this tendinitis.
I felt some immediate relief after the first session. And after five or six sessions, my flexibility was back and the pain was gone.
My wife, Saori, had problems with her left arm as well. During a massage session outside the Club, a stretch performed on her strained her arm. She decided to work with Koichi as well and see if he could help.
One thing that Koichi does when he starts working with you is a gait analysis to understand your movements and posture, because everything is connected.
Saori doesn’t have the chance to exercise much, so when she started working with Koichi, he noticed that her muscles were very tight in many areas, and she had trouble lifting her arm without pain. She needed to take training very slowly, and some things needed to be corrected before working on her arm. He started by using osteopathy to help her posture so she would have fewer pains. Once the pain was reduced, she became more flexible and could do the exercises.
Following gym training, Koichi does an hour of osteopathic alignment with Saori. And after three or four months, she found that her arm pain was completely gone. He even helped her posture to prevent further problems.
Through gentle, subtle movements—even just an inch at a time—and more aggressive stretching of the areas causing pain, Koichi really helped us both a lot. He even showed us things we can do at home to maintain posture and flexibility.
If you’re having an issue, get a diagnosis from a doctor first. If physical therapy is the solution, Koichi can definitely make a difference. He understands so well how the parts of the body work together and is really happy when he sees that you’re getting better.
As told to INTOUCH’s C Bryan Jones.
Image of (l–r) Saori and Mark Chambré and Koichi Uesaka: Yuuki Ide
June 2025
