Building body tension with a stick to move with less pain

Yeah, and that's the thing is understanding exactly what you're after and giving them a way to access the movements better. So regardless of their skill level, especially with people that have a low skill level, they're just not movers, they're not lifters, they're unconditioned, and they have a hard time understanding what it is that you're trying to get out of them. Which, to be honest with you, is the vast majority of the general population. You're listening to the Restoring Human Movement podcast, where movement experts discuss the latest evidence-based practices to help you and your clients move with mastery.

And now, your host, Dr. Sebastian Gonzales. Hey guys, this is Dr. Sebastian Gonzales, your host with the Restoring Human Movement podcast. Thanks for joining the Movement Movement with me. If this is your first time, welcome. This is the podcast where I go through—it's not technical conversation. I try to make things very—I don't want to say dumbed-downed either, just simple, okay? We go through complex topics with simple conversation, or at least breaking them down as we hit some more complex things. Think of it like there's two docs sitting in a bar having a beer, and they have a friend who's a CPA listening over their shoulders, and they're like, Hey, what's that mean?

And you explain it, and you go on to the next thing, and they're like, hey, what's that mean? And so the whole purpose of this is to get clinicians to have a very clear conversation with their patients and be able to have you speak in their terms. And I do believe patients need to have a little bit of give and take on this. They need to understand, like, what a joint is, what a hip is, what a muscle is, what tension is. And so we go through a lot of those concepts through all these podcasts, and if you have not heard these podcasts before, circle back. Like, scroll down. Like, I'd mention off numbers, but iTunes started taking away the—they don't want you to number your podcasts anymore.

So just go through and see what interests you. I tried to label the titles accordingly. Now, we're going to have on Dennis today. This is Dennis Dunphy from Stick Mobility. It's an interview, and Dennis was introduced—I was introduced to Dennis via a past guest, Jesse Machedo. Jesse, we talked to—he's a trainer or a strength coach that we talked about squatting. And so we went to one of Dennis' workshops with Stick Mobility and said, hey—he just texted me randomly. He was like, hey, you got to interview Dennis. Like, reach out to this guy. And I said, why? You know, what's the deal? Like, Dennis just has—it looks like he just has another thing.

Maybe he's just going to sell a system. And he's like, no, dude, like, this is—this is the shit. And so the whole point of this, which we'll go into with Dennis, by the way, the whole point of this is creating tension. Dennis will explain it as irradiation a little bit, which they do that in different types of forums. I think Strong First, they talk about radiation. FRCD, they talk about irradiation. I talk about tension. But for the most part, I have the belief that people a lot of times get injured because they don't have tension through certain ranges of motion. And so when—with lifting, say if you're dead lifting, you use the floor to turn the floor to create tension through the floor into the hips, into the rest of the body.

And then eventually the weight comes up with it. And so in this regard, Dennis has used just a simple stick, a simple tool, to create tension and help improve mobility as well as ability to resist pain-triggering movements throughout motion. I don't know if that was probably a mouthful, but the whole purpose of this is—and again, the stick is an implement. And I've heard Dennis and other podcasts say that you can replace it with a PVC pipe if you want to. You can replace it with a dowel, but for the most part, using the stick in a certain way creates that aha moment. Just as the person turning the floor for the first time with squatting or dead lifting has the aha moment like, ah, that's what pre-lift tension is.

And so as we go through this interview with Dennis, we're going to cover some of the principles of how we can use implements like a stick to generate tension, which will help reduce symptoms in a lot of your clients. And also, too, we go into food. We go into a good probably 15, 20 minutes of food. And so I do believe, as obviously, as you've heard my old podcast, is I believe communication and being personal with people is a big thing. And so, as you'll see, Dennis is a really great communicator, and I think this is probably why the system's gone so far. It is a great system, by the way. So, without any further ado, we're going to get first into the personal story so you guys learn a little bit more about your host, me.

I usually go through a little rant, or I go through something which is something I like or I hate, just so you know a little bit more about me. And then we'll get into the interview with Dennis. So, here we go. Okay, so there's many nights where I leave work later than what I want to. And, by the way, I do love cooking. I love cooking. And so, I like cooking, though, really when I only have time to cook. So, if I'm leaving the office around 7, 7.30, 8 o'clock, I think, man, I don't have the stuff I need to cook what I want to cook. I feel like I'm going to be rushed. I don't want to do it. And so, I'll go to Chipotle.

And I think Chipotle should probably sponsor this podcast because I've been there so many damn times, I feel like, over the last, gosh, couple months. It's just late nights at work. And so, I go into Chipotle, and I know after working restaurant service that it's the same questions over and over again, and I want to save them the time. And so, I remember when I worked at a restaurant, especially with, it was a breakfast place. And so, it's like, hey, I want the number one, which is going to be eggs, hash browns of some type, bacon or sausage, and some type of toast. And so, you'll say, how do you want your eggs?

I want it over medium well. Great. Hash browns or potatoes? Hash browns. All right. Or some people, fruit cup or cottage cheese or tomato. And then you get into, eventually, into the bacon or sausage and into what type of bread. And so, it's like conversation that doesn't really need to happen beyond the first person because if you've got four people at a table, you kind of know what you're going to ask. And Chipotle, they have it all laid out there. And so, usually, I'll walk up. I want to ask them, how are you doing? Like, I'm like, oh, we're doing good. And like, so, sometimes, they'll ask me, answer me robotic, which I don't like.

It's like I'm trying to interact with you as a person. So, tell me a real thing. Second is that, so, I'll go through. I'll say, look, all right, can I get a burrito to go with fajitas, brown rice, black bean, chicken, and then you get to the next station, right? And so, that's all I say. I say, brown rice, black bean, fajitas, chicken. And so, they do the tortilla, and they move on. And they say, what type of rice? And I say, brown. What type of beans? Black. What type of meat? Chicken. And so, they, I can't for the life of me get through Chipotle other than one time. There's one time that I was able to do it.

I'm trying to save them the conversation of saying the same darn thing every day. And so, every time, if you notice you go to Chipotle, I don't know if it's part of their training system, but they make you say it a second time every time, all right? You get over into all those ones, and finally, the one that they'll, they'll tend to skip, though. They tend to skip the fajitas every time, so you really got to ask for the fajitas. But anyways, Chipotle, I understand that you want to get the order right, but one of the most nuisancing things about going to Chipotle is repeating yourself over and over and over again, especially since you got that high spit guard.

Maybe it's the spit guard. I don't know. All right. Now, on to the content. All right, everyone, and welcome on Dennis, Dunafee, right? Dunafee? Dunafee, yes. Dunafee. Got it. Yes. I've been known to butcher people's names, so I don't even attempt to get it right the first time. I just let them correct now. Everybody butchers my last name. That's why, at least we have Modern Family. Their last name is Dunafee, so I'm like, yeah, just watch Modern Family. You'll find out how to pronounce my last name. What is Dunafee from, anyways? Like, what is the origin of a Dunafee name? It's Scottish, so I was, and then it's Irish with Scottish ancestry, so I was adopted when I was three.

So I'm South Korean by birth. You ever notice you have to say South Korean? Nobody ever just says Korean. Yeah. It's a little odd, huh? I always say that. I catch myself saying that. I'm like, South Korean. People are like, you mean Korean? Oh, yeah, I guess so. Well, I think, I was talking to a buddy about, we were talking about Korea for some reason, and he said that North Korea, like, burn up all their assets, like, trees. Like, you go to the DMV on one side, there's no trees. You go to South Korea, and, like, there's trees everywhere. Oh, interesting. Maybe you want to be affiliated with being a tree.

See, that's why I delineate myself. That's why I got to put that in there. Yeah, right on. Nice. Well, so I thought I would have you on today with, so Jesse Machado, he's from Equinox. He's been a guest on my show, and he's a friend, and so he just texts me randomly. He's like, hey, you got to have Dennis on. I'm like, why? And he's like, well, look at this. He's like, it's the best. Do it. Like, this is going to blow up. So I thought I'd have you on to talk about some of the stick stuff, but for the most part, I played around with it a little bit this morning, too, because we do mess with tension here clinically.

And I do have some questions for you, but I thought I'd let you start off with, what's the deal with stick mobility? Stick mobility. It's a system where we use a tool to help so you can gain leverage, add stability to the joints, your movement. We also bring in irradiation, so we're trying to recruit as many tissues as we can while we're moving. Then we also use a lot of isometrics. So I know isometrics isn't a big thing in the health and fitness industry, but we use isometrics extensively. And then we're looking for a ton of feedback. So for us, most of the time, the body's just lacking feedback.

So we want to use the stick as a way to give the user that feedback that they're missing. For the coach, visually speaking, they can assess the movement of the client visually. So as they're going through the movements, they can see where the gaps are, what needs to be filled, what needs to be taken care of. And we're hoping all at the end result is better coordination. Increased body awareness and better overall performance. And like our tagline says, it's just movement made better. Cool. Well, so I guess I should retract for a second here. I tend to jump in the conversation a little early and joke around and stuff and bullshit talk.

But I guess at the same time, I need to make sure I should probably frame stuff for you a little bit here is that a lot of the listeners are going to be clinicians and strength coaches. So for the clinician then, how could you use something like these principles to improve someone's pathology or symptoms? Have you have any experience in that yet? So the physical therapists that come to our courses, for them, it's we look, our system is built, number one, on joint mobilization. So we stress to the user, look, you have to make sure that the person understands their joint function before they work on increasing the joint capacity.

So for clinicians, the stick gives them a ability to help really activate the stabilizers, especially in the deep hip tissues. So the deep hip stabilizers that a lot of people may not have access to or don't know how to access, the stick gives them that ability to finally understand where the obturator gemellis really operates as a deep hip stabilizer. So, by the way, in case no one's, if they're tuning into this and they're like, why are they talking about sticks? The example probably you should look at is the Instagram feed's pretty darn good. It's stick at stick mobility, and it'll give you examples of how it works.

I was actually giving an example of my girlfriend this morning. She was, I was walking out the door, I'm like, hey, I'm going to interview Dennis. He did this thing called stick mobility. And she's like, what is that? So we went through the Instagram feed. And so we went one where someone's going into extension. And so she mainly works with dancers. And so we're going a lot of tension cueing. And sometimes we'll use bands. Sometimes we'll use other implements. And I know in my, if I'm teaching someone to use like a barbell or a dumbbell, I'll tell them to deform the object, bend the bar, crush the handle, and so on.

And with the, when I showed her the video of this girl going into extension, I'm like, look, she's just pushing it into the floor. So she's creating tension. And she's like, oh, that's great. Perfect. And so it helps against things like, in that case, it'd be our stress reactions with dancers with hyperextension, right? So I think the application is really simple. It's not, it's not over the top. And it's really easy once you feel it, I'm guessing. Yeah, that's the biggest thing cue is, is as coaches, we always talk. We, we tell our clients, hey, do this, do that, but they need to feel it. I mean, people understand things when they feel tissues activate, they go, oh, you know, something as simple as trying to teach somebody how to create pre-lift tension, right?

So when you're trying to teach somebody a deadlift and you're like, okay, engage the lats, pack the shoulders down, create that pre-lift tension, somebody that's never experienced that or felt that, they're just staring at you like, yeah, you can keep talking, buddy, but I have no idea. So with the stick, what's awesome is, is you can put them into that, uh, starting position of the deadlift and say, pull apart on the stick. Like it's a six foot stick. Let's try to make it six and a half feet in length. And they pull apart and you go, you feel the lats. They're like, yeah, you're like, okay, now I'm going to push down on the stick.

Don't let me push down on the stick. And you start to push down on the stick and they get that reflexive tension because they're trying to prevent you from pushing down on the stick. And you're like, that's the pre-lift tension that I want you to experience before you start deadlifting. And they're like, there you go. So now you've given them that kinesthetic feedback. They understand internally what they're supposed to feel. And that way, when you start to go into the deadlift, you can always just remind them if you see that they're missing a cue or something, they're missing something. You just go, hey, give me that pre-lift, pre-lift.

So as we come back on here, we lost Dennis here for a second. So you're talking about, okay, set that pre-lift tension into the deadlift. And so they tend to, then they have some skill sets they've built already, I'm guessing, that they can reflect back on. Yes. Yeah, and that's the thing is understanding exactly what you're after and giving them a way to access the movements better. So regardless of their skill level, especially with people that have a low skill level, they're just not movers, they're not lifters, they're unconditioned. And they have a hard time understanding what it is that you're trying to access, what you're trying to get out of them, which, to be honest with you, is the vast majority of the general population.

I completely agree. I think they just, they don't know what tension feels like, and when you ask them to do something like bending the bar, like a metal bar, it doesn't equate, it doesn't, because they can't physically bend the bar, you know. Well, I think you have a great use of external cues. I think it's spot on, and it's a really easy thing. I do have a question, though, with, because I was playing around with it this morning. And so I was doing, I was basically doing a hinge, and I would, I took a stick into one hand, I just took a, I took a dowel in this case. I drove it into the floor to creep tension from the anterior chain, and then I did the hinge.

But what I noticed was that, for me, a lot of times I cue foot contact or spread the floor. And so I lost a little focus on that. How do you guys cue the floor since I haven't been to, or do you cue the floor since I haven't been to a course? Oh, yeah, I cue the floor where it's just corkscrewing, pull the floor apart, toes away from each other, drive the heels in slightly towards each other, pull that floor apart, get the outer line, outer hip line activated. But we also use, where you can also, instead of just pushing the stick into the floor, we can use the base of a wall, that helps also. So you place the sticks at the base of the wall behind you, push backwards, and then that'll help maintain better foot connection also.

Nice. So you're using just, you're just playing with, playing with vectors to get the best end result. Yes, exactly. Whatever the best end result is, use that vector. People respond differently to each, to different angles. So depending on their skill level, you know, bodies, body type, you know, limb length. So things are different. And for me, it's when I'm coaching, when I'm teaching coaches, I see a lack of understanding sometimes on trying to take people's body structure into account of how they grasp movements. But it's, I think a lot of them were just taught very cookie cutter, you know, boom, boom, boom generalizations.

And coaches have a hard time adapting and improvising to specific case by case. Yeah. And so, actually, I heard, I heard that you were, you're talking to, by the way, Jesse, Jesse and the Maestro did a good job interviewing you. I think they both did really good. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Good combo. But I heard you talking to the Maestro about, so you guys were talking about the things that you did years ago. You wish you would apologize to your, to your clients. I'm just kind of curious, if you had to roughly estimate what amount of coaches at this point do you feel like know that they're, that they're supplying the correct tension in this regard and teaching things well?

Oh, geez. I know it's a tough, I don't want to put you, put throwing you under the bus. Wow. Well, I got it, if I'm being very blunt, very few, very small percentage. I, I mean, I look at it as if I would entrust you to train my spouse or my parents, you know, I think that's the highest compliment that you can pay to a trainer or a coach. So for me, I got to be honest with you, it's probably maybe a couple dozen people off the top of my head, you know, but, uh, uh, and that's, and I'm saying just like, yeah, I would just say probably 10%, 5%. Yeah. Well, I was just kind of curious again, and I didn't want to throw you under the bus with it, but I know that with, um, like my, my story kind of on how I've developed clinically is that I've been very open with patients and they come in and they're like, they're like, what makes you different?

And I said, honestly, five years ago, I would not have trusted myself to work with you because I didn't know what I didn't know. Um, and then I started learning stuff and I'm still learning now. And, uh, I feel like, um, tension is something that came on very late for me, um, in using that as a way to offload people's, um, symptomatic pathology or symptomatic structures or whatever it might be. Um, and until you feel it, and I've had interns come in and until you feel like, oh, turning the floor, huh? That's what it's supposed to feel like, you know, and, and your application of, of, um, using, uh, using a stick or another implement, another point of contact to develop tension.

It's just another feel. Um, and when you get a, when they feel it, all of a sudden it's, it's a, it's a mind blowing experience. Uh, yeah, very true, you know, and that's the best thing about it is, is, uh, the simplicity of, of the approach to me is, is what's, is the best part about it. It's, it's such as, we try to make it as simple as possible. Uh, and we see that because of the level of coaches, uh, that we're instructing and teaching, uh, especially when it comes to big box gyms, uh, the level of education isn't there. Uh, and I mean, we're all guilty of it when we first entered the industry.

Uh, so, I mean, it's just trying to get them to understand as, as, as, uh, um, simply as possible. Here's how you're going to access these tissues for this person. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I, I think it's a great application for it. It's, uh, it's, it's simple. Um, it kind of reminds me of, um, like, I, I always tell people that as they're, um, uh, other than like resistance training or lifting weights or what they'd like to do in the gym, I tell them to go do something that is like reactionary, like catching butterflies or, um, you know, like throwing, like even, even throwing something like a tomahawk.

If it's heavy enough, you have to create tension or else you're going to hurt yourself. So, um, I, I feel like yours is a controlled way of exposing people to that. What's kind of funny is like, you just brought up like catching butterflies and throwing tomahawks. What I think is funny is, is when you suggest that to people, they kind of look at you like, really? Yeah. You know? And, and, and I think that's sad because I'm like, yeah, why would you not? It's just, it's different. It's fun. It's movement. Just do something that you're not used to doing. Right. I mean, just change something in your life that you're not used to doing.

I had a client once and I was like, Hey, next time you're out on a hike, uh, climb, climb a tree or hold onto a branch. And he literally said, I can do that. And I'm like, yeah, you can do that. Why can't I'm like, you have two hands. I'm like, your arms were perfectly fine. He's like, Oh, I'm like, there's not going to be a park ranger. They're giving you a ticket. I'm like, you're not going to get arrested. It's a tree. He's like, Oh, okay. I'm like, this is what we were designed to do, folks. I'm like, move. Don't just hike on the trail. If you see a branch that's going to be sturdy, hang from it for a few minutes, you know, enjoy yourself.

Have fun. Yeah. Be a kid again. That's kind of like, that's like tree molestation though. So on Earth Day, I think they're exempt from that. You can't touch a tree. You can only hug it. Oh, is that right? Exactly. That's funny. Yeah. But I do agree though. Like, yeah, I've told people before that like, so they're, they're, they're struggling to find something for like a, I want to do them to do an isometric shoulder press. Right. And they're like, well, I want something that's also really going to, really going to challenge me exertionally. And I'm like, put your car in neutral and push it, you know?

And they're like, no, really? What do I do? And I'm like, I said, push your car. I'm not joking. Go push your car. And I'm like, you can put the e-brake on. I don't care if you move the car, just create some tension against the car, you know? Right. So, but, but, but the small exposure of movement, I think is a big thing too. Like, this is why I migrate towards at least some type of reactional thing. Like, so I play baseball and so I don't know where each pitch is going and I'll have to lean out a little bit. One might be high, one might be low. And so the variability, at least, I'm only getting like five to ten hacks of each probably range if I'm doing a big day of hitting.

Even catching balls, it's all the, it's you're reacting to an external thing. You're not thinking much of it, but you have these small doses of variability. Yes. I mean, if the ball takes an odd hop, you have to be able to react to that. You have to be able to change that position of your body to react to that. Yeah. So. So simple. Baseball is one of those sports that really demands that. So it's a, it's a tough sport to play, much tougher than most people think. And it's awesome when you see somebody play it at a high level. Uh, I remember the first time I ever saw, uh, man, when I was in, uh, high school and we were playing and, uh, in a church league.

And, uh, one of the guys on the other team had played minor league baseball and man, to see him play. I was like, you gotta be kidding me. That was the moment, that was the moment where I said, I will never yell, you suck to anyone that makes a professional league. I'm like, it's no one sucks when they hit that elite level. I mean, they're just all phenomenal athletes. You just see the way they move, the way they, they react. You're just like, that's just insane. You know, you see some, you see a line drive that you're like, oh, that's a base hit. And the guy just elevates, snags it out of the air.

You're like, what did, what just happened? You're like, holy crap. You're just amazing. You don't ever, you don't ever think about how you can improve their tension. So, um, question back onto the stick stuff is, um, I was, as I was playing with it, I started thinking about, uh, as I, as I started playing with it, I started scrolling through your Instagram. Uh, I didn't see anyone with a weight in their hand at the same time. Is that something that people do or? We can, we can, but for the most part, what we're looking for is we use irradiation. So we're talking about different percentages of tension.

Uh, so if we're doing just typically when we're stretching, we're asking people to say, okay, give me about 30 to 40% of your overall perceived exertion. Uh, so, you know, and for people, they have to play around with that. They have to figure out what is my 30%, right? Nobody really knows until they, they practice and play around with it enough. And, and that's always on an escalating scale, right? So as a person gets stronger, their 30% effort, uh, a year down the road is different than their 30% effort today. So, uh, but if we get into what we call priming, where we're like bench pressing, for example, or squatting, we'll ask for about 50% tension.

We don't want to completely exhaust the tissues, uh, but we want to create that, uh, coordination, that linkage between the brain and all the tissues involved in the movement. So we'll ask for about 50% perceived exertion. Uh, if we want to go above the 60% range, then we're getting into just pure strength training. So, uh, force is the language of the cells. The body doesn't, uh, understand, doesn't care about external load as far as the amount of force production you're asking for. So we can ask somebody, we can get them into the Dunphy squat or the bench press and go, give me 100% all out balls to the wall, max effort.

And we, after they're done, we're like, there's your one rep max. It's just not externally loaded. And it's amazing when you see how exhausted they are. They're like, wow, that was, that was hard. And you're like, yeah, it's challenging. So we just, we, our perfect set, what we do when we set up is number one, we tell them what body position we want them to be in first. Uh, then we use the clock system to tell them where to place the sticks. So they know what angles we want the sticks at. And then we ask them that the third thing that we do is we're going to give them the perceived, uh, rate of exertion.

So we're going to say, Hey, we're going to do this drill at 30%. What, um, at what point you said you do them isometrically or just like positional holds. Uh, it, is that an entry level or do you, uh, scale them out of that quickly or do you hit different, uh, isometric positions before you start moving or? Yeah. So we'll, we'll figure out, okay, we'll say here's our range of motion that we're trying to access that we're trying to coordinate. So we'll say, okay, we have about 150 degrees range of motion here that we're trying to coordinate. All right, let's, so we need 30 degrees. We're going to strengthen 30 degrees, uh, when we hit a certain angle.

So we're going to hit 15 degrees above and below. So we'll say, okay, so we want to, we want to, uh, focus on five points. We have 50, 150 degrees. Well, okay, we're going to do five points here. And then, so we'll have them hold it statically. Uh, depending on the length, we can do six to 10 seconds. Uh, you know, for priming, we'll say, okay, give me about 50% perceived exertion for six seconds. And we're going to hit five different angles. Uh, once we've done that, once we've done that, then we'll actually have them anchor the sticks into a, into an anchor point, about 50% perceived exertion.

And then we'll have them move through the whole movement, maintaining that tension as they move through the whole movement. Then we'll put the stick down. We'll give them the appropriate amount of rest and we'll say, okay, now let's go under the actual external load or the open chain movement. Here you go. So the, so in that last part, the stick is fixed. They're moving about a fixed stick. Yes, exactly. So whether the anchor point is above them to the side in a wall or on the floor, uh, we just, we're trying to figure out, okay, do we want the posterior chain activated more than if we want that?

We'll push up into the ceiling above us, uh, for trying to get the lateral lines, anti-rotational tissues. Okay, boom, here's your oblique slings. Let's, uh, let's push into the wall. Let's push down at an angle or up at an angle. Uh, and then if we want just a deep front line, then boom, here we go. We're pushing straight down into the floor in front of him. So I noticed you're not saying muscles. You're saying lines of tension. Does that sound right? Yeah. We just say tissues here, you know, it's, it's, uh, for fans of Dr. Andreo Spina, I, you know, for FRC, uh, I love his approach and the fact that here's a clinician and he doesn't get all, well, we're going to hit this muscle, this muscle, this muscle.

He goes, you know, see this arm, it's not working well. We're going to make this work well. You know, and for me, it's, I've always, I've always had that view because your clients, when you, when you say, well, we're going to hit this muscle, they just stare at you like, okay, that's nice. You know, they're like, so, you know, the scientific name. Okay. Can we move on now? So it's just, you're just, for me, when he said that I was, it was very relatable to me. I'm like, oh, thank goodness. You know, I'm like, so it's just here, this part of your body's not working this right here. And you point at it or whatever you go, this is where the area we're going to focus on.

We want better connection here. So let's get after it. Oh, dig it. I was just curious. I was just curious the reasoning. I'm, I'm down with the idea. I do the, I try not to do muscles and structural things. I think people get hung up on the idea that part of their body is broken and, you know, not going to work again. So I'm on their board. I'm on board. I was just kind of curious. Another question is, so I have young clinicians come in and they want to shadow. And I think one of the common questions that I often get from them is how do I put this all together and how do I use certain things with certain people and not this thing with other types of cases?

Do you have something that you like to assess for clinical application? Or is it just an overall, like, these are the things that people should be able to attain with, with full control? Yeah, we do the, we do the, the, this is what people should be able to attain with full control. Uh, I, we leave everything up to the clinician, uh, because they know the patient. So, um, we'll just say, Hey, if there's a guy, this is just the basic guidelines. Uh, once you understand the principles and that for us is the, is the biggest thing that we want to get through to the coaches and clinicians is here. This is our set of principles.

These are the ideologies, uh, grasp these first. And once you grasp these, then you can figure out, Oh, okay, uh, this is how I'm going to apply it in this situation. And what I think what people get caught up on when they learn methods is they're just learning. They're just trying to learn the method or they're just trying to learn the tasks or the exercises. And I get that all the time from coaches are like, well, do you have a video library? I'm like, okay, do you understand the whole two days of what you just went through? No. Then yes, we have a video library, but you need to master what you just learned in the last two days before you start expounding upon what you just, what you just went through.

So mass, we're giving you the basics of what we feel every, every coach or practitioner should have at their disposal. So master these, learn these because we know that on a two day course, you're really only going to really lock down about three to six big things, right? So master those things, be really great at those three to six things, then start to add another part, another part, and really understand the ideologies and the principles. Once you get that, then you'll really start to grow as a coach and a practitioner. And if I can add something too for the clinicians is, I think if you use some of the stuff that Dennis is talking about and you test and retest.

So I tend to go through the clinical audit process. Someone has pain with rotation. You have them develop tension through rotation. You can cue it or you can use something like a stick and you take them through it again. I'm like, oh, my symptoms went away. And so I call it just building buttresses. You're building a support for the movement that wasn't passed there. And then you're offloading a structure that's a symptom generator, whatever it might be. And so when Dennis is talking about taking some skill sets and applying them to the correct case, I think, is that what you're kind of talking about?

It's not about the exercise. It's about the application. Exactly. That's exactly it. So it's trying to get that point across to people. And some people, it just takes a little bit longer for them to grasp that concept. But I think they come around to it after a while. Yeah. So when you start playing with sticks, by the way, do you think of something? Do you ever think of battle axes or sickles? Or are you guys fighting in a field? You know, it's kind of funny. I took a screama. I started doing a screama probably about 10 years ago. And it came very natural to me. But the bow staff, when we went into the bow staff work, my coach was like, holy crap.

He's like, you're like a fish to water with this thing. You know, it was just, for whatever reason, it just was such a natural tool for me. And it was interesting. He's like, you know, for people that believe in past lives, and if that's something that you believe in, you know, old souls type things. He's like, yeah, in your past life, he goes, you were very, very proficient at that. So I was like, you know, if you're into that, it makes sense. If you pick something up and you just, you've never used it before, but all of a sudden you're just wielding it around, there might be something to that, right?

So that was my first experience really dealing with sticks. And it's kind of funny when you look back and you think about human relationship with tools. I mean, the stick was one of the very first tools that we used. Yeah, yeah. For some reason right now, you reminded me of the movie Blind Fury. Right? That's awesome. Wow. I haven't heard that reference in quite a while. I know. I didn't think about it until you told me that you're picking up sticks like Donatello. Or the, what'd they call it, the, or you said it was the cane staff, or what was it again? The bow staff, yeah, just the long stick, yeah.

So it's like a six-foot stick, six or seven-foot stick, yeah. Yeah, just with blood on the end. Right, exactly. So it's kind of funny when people use the sticks, when we see people using the sticks. I mean, we use them for response, reaction, as far as, you know, you'll see Edo Portal do that with, you know, don't let me touch you with the object. We do that with the stick because we want to let people know, look, you know, just because you're mobile doesn't, now do you understand how to apply it? So we see people that are very mobile, but they have a tough time coordinating and applying that mobility and what's really usable for them.

That's a good point. So reversal of movement or building your brakes, then you're, so you're going through the mobility maybe aspect in the beginning or with, for these entry level, and then the don't touch me is the reversal. Yes, exactly. So, oh, go ahead, sorry. Do you know how long that, how long, because I don't get too much into, like, anti-rotational or, I don't, I go into that a little bit with people. I have no idea, actually, how long it takes them to build a good, good tolerance of it or a good mastery of it without having to cue it. Do you have any idea or? We seem to get pretty quick response.

I mean, it's, it, the response is, is, uh, relatively quick. I mean, it's like anything else. It depends on the person's, uh, instinct, natural abilities to pick up on things. Uh, it's, it's interesting. I think the skill levels are different with each person. Uh, but we see pretty good, uh, increases. And some people say, okay, if, if I'm trying to push you, if I, if you have your arms out, we're doing that pal-off press. And, and how quickly do we see a better reaction? It's pretty evident right off the bat when we prime the pal-off press. And then we go, we actually applied the external load to it.

Uh, does it stick? No. I mean, we have to keep conditioning that, but it typically doesn't take too long, a couple of weeks or so before we start to see a really nice solid base. Uh, once again, it depends on the frequency of how often the, as the person doing this and, you know, how much volume is involved. And, and, uh, so it's different in every case. People always ask, they're like, well, how many, how, how often should, how quickly should I expect to see this? I don't know. I mean, I can give you a ballpark, I can give you a ballpark figure, but you, you're you, I, me, I respond differently than you do to the same exact stimulus.

So once you give that to people, they go, oh, okay, I got you. I'm glad you did bring that anti-rotational thing up or that building the brakes, uh, part up because I was thinking of it as I was driving in today. I didn't write anything down for this interview. I'm just going off the cuff here, but, um, that was one thing I wanted to hit. So you're so good at, you're so good at leading in segways. Thank you. See, it's an eight, huh? Yeah. And so, and so probably on that note then, uh, in your interviews, you're a really good conversationalist. Did you just like talk to walls as kids and, and, uh, like, how did, how did you become such a good speaker?

Uh, I don't know. I really don't know. I just, uh, it flows well off the tongue. It was school in school. I, uh, I was pretty much the kid that was friends with pretty much every click. Uh, you know, I didn't have, you got your nerds, you got your jocks, you know, you got your beautiful people, all these, you know, cool people, blah, blah, blah. Uh, I, I think I was the kid that could, that could float between all of them. You know, I, I love my comic books, you know, I, I loved my, uh, you know, time to do that. But then I played sports, so I was always extremely active in, in that regard. Uh, you know, so I, the beautiful crowd I didn't blend in with, I have a face for radio.

So that's, uh, so that was, uh, I think that was the one crowd I just wasn't, I wasn't good with. So, but everybody else, I think, uh, uh, I didn't do too bad of a job, but, you know, as far as, you know, the skate, oh, skateboarding was a big thing when I, in the eighties, uh, the skate, the skater generation really popped up. So, uh, you know, even them, I had friends that were skaters. I could, I was terrible at it, but, uh, I mean, I used to admire watching what these guys, what these kids could do. So we'd hang out and I, I just didn't watch. I'd be like, dude, that was awesome. Give it a try.

I'm like, no, I, I like my neck intact, but you know. So you, you didn't get into the rollerblading population then that was around, that was almost around the same time and later, huh? I, I did, uh, cause I played hockey. So I was like, okay, well, rollerblading, the same thing. And, uh, I played roller hockey for a little bit, um, but it's just not like being out on the ice. It's just not even close. So it's, uh, I played roller hockey for a few years and then I had to get back on the ice because it's two, it's two different strides too. So, uh, much choppier, more running style when you're on rollerblades versus that full power glide when you're on ice.

I've never, I've, I've experienced rollerblading, not really, uh, ice skating to that degree. Uh, I had no idea that different feels actually. I thought it was like, it's right. Yeah. Most people think it's the same exact thing, but it's not. Um, I heard, uh, uh, who was it? Oh, Gary Roberts, uh, played in the NHL for 20 years. Uh, he's actually a top, he's actually a, uh, performance coach up in Toronto, works with a ton of elite level, uh, NHL players now. And, uh, he talked to me, I was talking to him the one time he, we talked about the difference between rollerblades and ice skates. And he said, he goes, man, he goes, I thought I would go to rollerblading in the off season because it would help me stay conditioned, uh, for between hockey seasons.

He goes, it actually kind of screwed up my stride. Yeah. It was because it's a different stride. So he's like, I only played for, uh, a couple of years and he goes, and then I stopped because it was messing up my stride. I was like, oh, interesting. Yeah. I, I'd believe that. I thought the same thing actually with, uh, since I still play baseball on a weekly basis with softball and golf, like people like, oh, you, you, you play baseball. You should be good at the other two. And I'm like, I played softball mid season. It screws me up. Um, and golf, I feel like I'm just shanking balls everywhere and it's just, it's frustrating on both fronts.

It's like, there's no point. Yeah, I mean, I think it, uh, you know, it's yeah, but the difference between baseball and softball is to the average person, uh, obviously it kind of, they think it looks the same, uh, but your timing is completely different. Uh, the angle of your swing is completely different, you know? So it's the, so yeah, it's to the average user, to the average person, they're like, yeah, it's the same thing. You're like, no, no. There's a lot of different subtleties there that, that make it vastly different. Yeah. What, what'd you want to do when you were a kid? Did you want to be a coach or do you want to do something else?

I wanted to own a restaurant. Did you really? Yeah. I grew up as a, uh, I grew up, well, my first job, my first real job was, uh, in a restaurant. So I worked about 10 plus years in the restaurant industry. And, uh, as far as back as I can remember, I've always cooked. I've always been in the kitchen. And, uh, I mean, as anybody can tell from my, my physique, I love to eat. Um, so, uh, I do not deny myself food. So, uh, you know, for me, it's, it's, it's, it's art for a lot of people. It's, uh, so that's always, it was always one of my top goals. Uh, I got into the industry because I kind of got, uh, I looked at, uh, the fitness industry.

I'd been active for so long and playing sports. And I was just like, I had, I worked at a bank for almost four years and, oh, just miserable, just absolutely miserable. Um, and so when I moved out to California, I was like, you know what? I love working out. I love health and fitness. If you have a passion for it and you love it, it's never work. Um, so, uh, I had a friend of mine who was a fitness manager at a local 24 hour and he's like, well, he goes, I can bring you on. So that was my first step. And I said, okay, let's do this. And, uh, and yeah, if you would have told me 20 years ago that I'd be doing this today, I would have been like, okay, sure.

Whatever. You know, um, I mean, I was in my mid twenties. I, I was like, well, let's, let's see where this goes. And, uh, you know, uh, three or four years in, I was like, okay, this is a career thing. Like that was the point where I went, okay, this is, this is a career thing. Like this is something I'm going to do for, uh, the next foreseeable, you know, 30, 40 years. So you don't see yourself starting a taco truck after this and just, or just getting like a road coach. Uh, I do actually soon. I mean, not soon, but I do, I do. My wife and I talk about it. You know, I love the fact that the food truck industry took a, the food truck thing became a big thing.

It makes sense business wise, right? Uh, much less liability than a brick and mortar. Right. Uh, the cost differential is massively beneficial. Uh, so when it started coming around, I was like, wow, I was like, makes sense. Um, you know, and then, uh, I think in maybe, maybe when I'm 70, 80 years of age, I'll finally decide to do it. Yeah. I'm sure it'll be shish kebabs. There's just something on a stick. No, I, uh, my, my mac and cheese is legendary. I've been told. Oh, you're, uh, that's, yeah, that's my, uh, that's my piece de resistance, so to speak. That's, that's, that's high, that's high expectation since there's a lot of mac and cheese competition around right now.

There is. And, uh, it's kind of funny because the people that have had my mac and cheese, they, they go to restaurants and stuff and they always come back. They say, no, no, it's not even close. So do these people then, actually, do you ever go to a restaurant and get mac and cheese anymore? Cause you know, yours is better. It makes sense. No. We, I don't even, I don't even touch it. I, I go, I go yearly to, uh, we go to Vegas with some of our, our grad school friends and these guys just love, they just love to go to high end steak restaurants. And so every year I'm like, dude, I don't want to pay $130 for a steak.

Just, it doesn't taste that good. And so they're like, could you do better? I'm like, yeah, I could do better. And so I've been cooking steaks and, and, uh, just this last December, um, someone, someone compared my steak to a $400 steak that they've had in New York. And I was like, oh, good. There's no reason to go to a steak restaurant again. Uh, so, uh, so, and, and I still believe that now. So that's a great one. People that go out to places that are used to paying, you know, going to high end places or, or not even high end places. There are a lot of good, good chefs out there that, uh, that have really brought down their price points.

I think what's interesting now is we're seeing a trend in the restaurant industry where your high end chefs are kind of getting disenchanted with the pretentiousness of, of walking into a, to a, uh, uh, uh, high end restaurant. Yeah. So, um, we're starting to see, uh, high end chefs open up very casual, uh, just regular restaurants. You know, you walk in, you're paying less money, uh, for the same quality of food. Uh, but they understand that it's just more about getting more exposure to more people and, and opening up the demographic as opposed to trying to stay in that small demographic. They're like, let's try to get more people.

Yeah. You know, so, yeah. I think it's great. Like the way it's, it's, as an example, we went to this steak restaurant in the Bellagio, right? And so I, I was wearing shorts. It's hot in Vegas in the summertime. And so they said, well, you can't come in. And so my friends are like, go buy pants. And I, and I looked and I saw this girl walk in a mini skirt and I said, do my legs offend you? Like, we're going to be on a table with a drape. Like, how is this any different? It's a, I feel like breaking those barriers down is very nice. Um, it's about the food. It's not about like, I'm not looking around, I'm just eating the food.

You know what I think is, is funny about that is if you were, let's say you were M&M. Oh, right. Do you think they would have turned, do you think they would have turned you away? No, I, I guarantee not. I have a second story after this, but, but continue. But that's what I find amusing is it. That's what I think is the most interesting thing about those types of restaurants. And I love those types of restaurants. I, you know, I worked in those types of restaurants, but I always think that's the most amusing part about it is, is that little bit of hypocrisy when they're like, well, you're not good enough to come in here, uh, because you're dressed this certain way.

But if, if Mark Zuckerberg walked up in shorts and a t-shirt, they're not going to turn Mark Zuckerberg away because Mark Zuckerberg's like, you know what? I'm just going to buy the restaurant and I'm going to come in whenever I feel like it, right? Right. So it's, it's kind of funny. It's, it's funny when you look at it that way. I, I agree. There was, there was one time this happened. I don't know what, maybe this is just Vegas stories, but so I was trying to get into a nightclub in Vegas, right? And I was wearing, um, Converse, or sorry, Jack Purcell's, the better Converse, and they had laces in them, right?

And so, so at the front door, they're like, you can't get in. Your shoes are incorrect. You have laces in your shoes. And so, um, by chance I was there with a friend and so she knew someone at the back, or the, the VIP area, the VIP gate. And so we walked right in. No one said shit about my shoes. You get in there, it's so damn dark. No one could see your damn shoes anyways. Like, what's the, what's the point? What's the point? Yeah, it's, it's kind of funny. It's, it's like they're trying to set an elitist, uh, level. Yeah. Like, oh, you have to meet this criteria. And, uh, sometimes you just, uh, what I find interesting is I see, like, being in the Bay Area, uh, it's much more casual.

Um, growing up in New York, it's different to see. It's interesting because growing up, I wore, I went to a private school. So I had to dress up and suits were in my closet and that was a normal, that was normal for me. And now I have two suits in my closet and I bust them out literally like maybe once, twice a year. Like, when I wear pants, people are like, holy crap, what is wrong with you today? Like, what is, do you have pants on? Did someone die? Not that I walk around naked, but I do have shorts on. But they're like, you have pants on, you know? And I'm like, well, I'm going to a special event or something, right?

So, uh, but yeah, out here in the restaurants, there's only a handful of restaurants that would require you to wear certain attire or a jacket or something. Where back in New York, you still have a lot of that in their restaurant scene where a lot, there's still a lot of restaurants where you have to have the proper dress code to get in. That's, well, I like that we're on the West Coast. I think this is the best coast now. Yeah, I can't complain. I, I really can't, you know, uh, the weather's not too shabby. Um, you know, it's, uh, and living only a couple hours from Yosemite or going up to, you know, going out to the, ocean and has, there's, has its advantages.

Uh, I always tell people, I'm like, you pay for it. You know, the cost of living is, uh, significantly higher than most places. But when you wake up every day and it's, you know, sunny outside for the most part, you're like, not too shabby. A lot of trees to climb too. Yeah, exactly. You're into that. Yes, very true. Very true. So as we go back into the, uh, the, the, the stick mobility, um, I think we should, I think I'm pressed to ask now, what do people eat at stick mobility courses? Is there a dinner or a lunch? And is it up to par with what you're talking about? Uh, well, my facility is located, uh, in a pretty good area.

So we have, uh, uh, a little shopping center about a half mile down the road and, uh, they've got some really good restaurants and they got one specifically really good restaurant in there. Uh, but across the street, uh, we have a really good little, uh, Greek place, little mom and pop, little family owned place. Fantastic Greek food. Um, so yeah, when, when people come in, uh, some of them bring their own snacks. Some, uh, I think a couple of people have brought their own lunches. Uh, but, uh, I let them know, look, you've got about off the top of my head. You got about 35 different places to eat within two miles of my facility.

So people have plenty of selection. Uh, so then I usually throw some, I'll throw about six or eight different places out there that they, I'll say, Hey, try these places. Well, they might be requesting your mac and cheese after hearing this podcast though. They might. Uh, yeah, it's, I, uh, I, it's kind of funny when I, when I make it, I usually make an announcement to my friends. I'm like, I'm making mac and cheese. Who wants some? And so, and I'll usually get the, I'll usually get the messages and so I'll be like, okay, boom, boom, boom. No, I'll take three pounds. Um, can you, can you, can you let everyone know, um, availability to learn about stick mobility?

Uh, cause we'll be probably closing up in about five minutes or so here, but I want to, I want to make sure everyone has all the details. Uh, so, uh, if you want to find out more about who we are, what we are, you can check out our site, uh, site. Stickmobility.com, uh, on there we have our, uh, certification listings. So our schedule is, is on there. Uh, we also have, when I'm in town on Saturdays, we usually run a one hour class from nine to 10. Uh, so if you, if you want to kind of just get a taste of what it is, then you can come to one of those. You'll see that on the schedule. Uh, so when I'm in town, we'll have that listed.

Um, and on Instagram, like you stated earlier, we're at stick mobility. Uh, Twitter's where it's same thing. Hashtag stick mobility. Uh, we don't really use Twitter as much as we, Instagram is by far our biggest platform. Yeah. And, uh, Facebook is just stick mobility. Okay. So. What, what does everyone else, what's, what's one last thing everyone needs to know about, uh, about you? Oh. Specifically. They got to, they got to like you to, to attend the course. So we got to, got to sell you. Uh, uh, well, uh, I, I'm pretty blunt. Uh, I, I will say some things that, uh, some people will disagree with and that's fine.

That's what makes us human. I tell people at the beginning of the course, I say, look, you know, we're going to bring a different, uh, a perspective that, uh, that probably hasn't been given to you before. Um, so come in with an open mind. Uh, I think you're going to be blown away by what you experience. Uh, we've heard that overwhelmingly from people. They're like, wow, this is way more in depth and way more mind opening than I ever expected. Uh, and it definitely expect to be exhausted. Uh, and, and it's, it is really taxing. And I do apologize beforehand to people. Uh, when we start, I say, look, you're going to, by the end of tomorrow, after the end of the 16 hours, you're going to be exhausted, you know?

And it's because unfortunately we only have two days to pack a lot of information in and most of the course is hands on. So it's about 80%, 85% hands on. So it's going to be physically, uh, pretty draining. Well, good. Well, I think it's fair to say that there's probably no pants shoe dress code there that, uh, you're going to require. And, uh, typically shoes and shoes off too. Oh, okay. So, yeah. So we want the feet in touch with the ground. We're very much, you know, starts from the feet up. So when people come in, we tell them, hey, shoes and socks off. Let's get those feet back on the floor and let's get them working again.

Well, I'm glad we talked about dining in a kit because it came full circle. Right? Exactly. Right on. Well, thanks so much for being on. Uh, I'll, I'll put some links, uh, in the show notes for everybody if you're looking for direct links. Um, and yeah, um, I think that's about it. Thanks for being on. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. This was fun. I enjoyed it. It was a good time. Yeah. Appreciate it. All right. Cool. Thanks so much, Dennis, for being on. Uh, I had a great conversation with you. Uh, I want to meet you in person. I have not yet, just so everyone knows. Uh, he is going to be, let's see, when is this podcast going to release?

We're going to be into July. Uh, so there is some workshops coming up and I did see that, uh, it's going to be too late. There's the idea convention in Anaheim in June, which I'm going to see if I can go meet him at. But, uh, there is some Southern California, uh, workshops that just, just check it out on the website, uh, stick mobility, and you'll see where you can go ahead and meet him. So the, uh, the show notes you can find on p2sportscare.com. That's P the letter to the number sports is plural care.com. Uh, we have a search function. Uh, in the past, I used to say numbers for the podcast, but iTunes really doesn't allow numbering systems anymore.

They don't want you to number your podcast. So just, just, uh, he's the only dentist that I've interviewed. So type up stick mobility, uh, two words, or type up Dennis, uh, Dunphy. I don't know if you can spell cause I couldn't either. Uh, but for the most part, uh, check him out. He's, uh, he's got some great information. Uh, and I, and I can tell you from experience of working with people with developing tension through movements, uh, it's very helpful, very helpful. Uh, and I, I've gone through days at the clinic where majority of the people, I really, I, I, I don't mean this as you don't have to touch your patients, but I really don't always have to touch my patients.

Sometimes you, you, you change the environment or change the implement and it, and it helps buttress and improve tension to offload a structure that they're in there concerned about, such as a disc or a, a knee car ledge or a tendon that is just screaming out in pain. And so learning how to cue tension with your, with your patients and, and your clients is going to be very helpful. Uh, I use it, I use tension cueing on a daily basis, uh, a daily basis. And until you feel it, you don't quite understand it. So, uh, as always, leave people better than how you found them. And if you're dating, date an Eagle Scout.

I'll talk to you guys next week.