You can find Darcy on socials @drdarcyphysio
If you’d like to know more about Darcy or book a Physiotherapist Consult click here
Hannah:
Welcome to The Burn Pod listeners. Now we’re really excited to introduce you to an incredible guest, someone that we’ve been working with behind the scenes at Burn Theory, to design a banging new version 2.0 of our roll and release workshops. Now, today we are lucky to have Darcy Stubbings join us to jump down that rabbit hole of mobility stretching, and I guess a little bit of bodily awareness. So welcome Darcy.
Darcy Stubbings:
Thanks, Hannah. Stoked to be here.
Hannah:
So good to see you here. Now, what I’d love us to get into before we get into the deep stuff is I guess, a bit of a background on you. How you got started in this area, what your passions are, I guess just a bit about yourself so our listeners can get to know you.
Darcy Stubbings:
Yeah, not a problem. Well, I am a physiotherapist and a strength coach currently working at GTT Performance Centre in Hobart. So I have a clinic here of my own and yeah, my passion is helping people just maintain really healthy habits and stay in the game, I guess, because quite often when we’re out there on the trails or mountain biking or in the gym or boxing, we are, I guess, at an increased risk of acute injury, because you’re putting the body through load, even if it is a positive load that can then lead to adaptation. But yeah, I’m kind of like your formula one pit crew, just helping people get back out on the track and enjoy doing the things that they love.
Hannah:
That’s awesome. And it’s so important. I mean, I think even just in general life, we’re sitting at… A lot of us sit at desks and we’re not sitting properly, so poor postural alignment or we’re lifting up kids or we’re moving our body in ways that can sometimes lead to injuries. So it’s really, I guess, important to know how we can look after ourselves, not just through strength and cardio, but also through keeping our bodies mobile and muscles long and lean and stretched.
Darcy Stubbings:
Oh 100%. And also maintaining, I guess, a really healthy relationship with our nervous system as well because when it comes to stretching or moving or even just existing, the state of our nervous system and whether we are in sympathetic stress, which most of us are most of the time, it’s really important to honor those subtler habits as well. So the mindfulness and lately, I’ve just moved to Hobart three months ago, but I’ve been enjoying getting to a local spa and getting some time in a sauna and just prioritising some of those subtle habits that certainly bring my nervous system back to balance. But equally I love the hit classes and getting the adrenaline and the dopamine release of a good strength and conditioning session and getting out on the trails.
I haven’t braved the Tassie ocean yet. I’m from Queensland. So I love surfing and I have spent my last kind of 28 years or so I’m 32 now, but only started surfing in about four. But you know, in New South Wales, you’re able to wear a 3/2 and get away with it. But here it’s, I dipped the toe in the water and it’s a little chillier than that. So looking forward to getting [inaudible 00:03:26].
Hannah:
Yeah you need the 20 mill.
Darcy Stubbings:
Yeah.
Hannah:
Yeah. The double 20 mill on the chest as well,
Darcy Stubbings:
20 mill will do it, but yeah, not at the ship Sterns level. I don’t think I’ll have a crack at that anytime soon, but yeah, stoked to be in Hobart. It’s a really exciting place and a lot of awesome people as well. I’ve just been blown away with how friendly everyone is and just being accepted into multiple communities already in the first three months, so excited to be here and chatting to yours.
Hannah:
Yeah. Awesome. Well, could you give us a little bit of a background on how you got started in, I guess the physiotherapy journey and the yoga journey and the strength and conditioning journey?
Darcy Stubbings:
Yeah, of course. Well, I studied a bachelor of medical science out of school. So I went to school in Sydney and studied medical science at the University of Sydney. I was actually heading down the medical route and had a bit of time in Africa working at a children’s hospital where I was exposed to surgery. So I was heading in that direction, really was quite passionate about orthopaedic surgery, but hit a few roadblocks in terms of my marks in undergrad, you needed a high distinction kind of average. And I was at about a distinction average. So I was left at a bit of an impasse. Didn’t get into the top three med schools that I was hoping to. And I was offered an opportunity to head to a doctor of physiotherapy programme that was opening at Macquarie University. If I was able to do a bit of study in psychology in the interim between those two degrees.
So I took that opportunity in both hands and yeah, really enjoyed three years of post grad study in physiotherapy. I always felt though that something was missing, it was always very physical, which was a fantastic foundation, learning your anatomy and physiology and what the other systems are doing to really bring about healthy habits and help you enjoy your life. But I always found that there was something missing on a deeper level. So basically after I finished physio school in 2015, I went straight to a local yoga studio in Sydney and did my 200 hour Vinyasa yoga teacher training. And I found just an awesome, positive and friendly community of people in that yoga context. These days, I practise yoga in the form of a mobility class with a specific intention to improve my range of motion. And also in the context of meditation to, like I said, just prioritise those subtler habits.
I prefer strength and conditioning or HITT workouts as my go-to exercise format these days. But throughout my twenties, I did a lot of yoga, got very mobile and developed a fair bit of strength as well, but there are certainly ways in which yoga doesn’t strengthen parts of the body. Like you don’t get the pulling movement pattern in yoga classes that much. So, I was going down that road and had a couple of clinics in Sydney that were based out of yoga studios in Surry Hills and Balmain. Spent a bit of time living in Germany throughout that time, which was fantastic. I’ve always enjoyed travel and getting to know other cultures. Since then, I’ve met my now wife who is from the United States. So in the last couple of years, we’ve lived in California and Canada. We both love being outside and that’s kind of the driving motivating force for me really is to prepare my body and my mind so I can spend more time having fun outside, whether that’s on a bike or a surfboard, or just on my own two feet.
So, that’s led us to trying to find a place that ticks all those boxes. I had a job offer in Queenstown working with a clinic that worked with the all blacks, but we were two days on the wrong side of the border closures a couple years ago.
Hannah:
Oh, no.
Darcy Stubbings:
Those sliding doors moments, you head in another direction and you just kind of do what you can with it and make the best of it. And so, that saw us kind of hopping around different countries around the world during COVID, which was a good challenge to stay in the same country together. But, thankfully we were able to stay together and we decided that rather than head to New Zealand across the ditch, that Hobart was a place that ticked all those boxes for us. So moved here three months ago, I’ve set up a clinic, as I mentioned at GTT Performance Centre. And I’m just really enjoying bringing all the elements together that I’ve cultivated in my study and experience over the last probably 10 years or so.
In terms of that knowledge of anatomy and physiology, my experience with strength and conditioning, teaching yoga, teaching in Pilate studios, working at hospitals, the whole kind of gamut of physio experience is now coming together to work with really motivated people. And that’s something that’s very important to me because when it comes to your physical and mental health, you have to be in the driver’s seat to really enact long term change. And you can have guides along the way. Like you’re obviously an amazing guide for your community and as all your instructors are, I’m sure, that’s the role we play as health workers. We’re trying to help people step into that driver’s seat. And it’s quite challenging when people aren’t willing. It’s not a judgement on behalf of them. I’m sure there are many blocks that they’re trying to overcome to live a life of health and a life of enjoyment. But I really enjoy working with people that want to do the work on themselves. So that’s why I base myself in an awesome gym and love working with people who are just stoked to get after it really.
Hannah:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s such a mixture of background education and experience. I didn’t realise you were travelling around the world. I’m particularly in COVID, that would’ve been a scary but a very exciting time.
Darcy Stubbings:
Yeah. It wasn’t ideal, but no.
Hannah:
Yeah.
Darcy Stubbings:
It wasn’t by choice. We were basically going to be separated for two years if we didn’t make a decision quickly. So we jumped on one of the last flights out of Australia before our previous prime minister closed the borders and yeah, somehow managed to just get out in the nick of time. And throughout that time, we both my wife and I, we both highly prioritise our movement practise. We didn’t have a gym to go to in California for the first year or so. It was kind of locked down. So we would practise yoga together at home. We would take our dog for walks, really whatever it takes to keep moving and yeah. Just stay healthy and active really.
Hannah:
Yeah. So I guess it’s a good chance for us to talk about mobility versus stretching. Is there a difference and what is that difference for us in our everyday life?
Darcy Stubbings:
Yeah, it’s a great question. I think it’s one that has a lot of question marks around it, in the health world as well. There’s, there’s been a lot of research, for example, that’s come out in the last five years or so around stretching, not being very helpful in lengthening tissue and I’m talking static stretching. So just sticking your leg up on a bench top and kind of hanging over and trying to stretch the hamstring may elicit a short term, a one or two hour kind of change in the length of your hamstring, but then it normally comes back to the position it was in before. So for me, mobility versus stretching is taking… So mobility is taking your joint through its full range of motion and exploring how you control your body towards end of range. Often people have compensations in their body due to previous injuries or postural habits that involve a muscle switching on when it doesn’t necessarily need to.
I see a lot of people on my physio table who, I’ve been joking lately that I could put together like an album of bird noises, because a lot of my clients kind of cry out in all, all kinds of forms of onomatopoeia, because they have this tension in their body that they didn’t really know about until I stuck my thumb in there. But it’s tension, that if you’re lying on a table, probably shouldn’t be there. It’s not very helpful to have. For example, a really tense infraspinatus, one of the four rotator cuff muscles just behind the shoulder blade there, or glutes is such a common area that people are just so tight in when they’re just relaxing. So what I like to do is start with exercises that bring blood flow to a joint and then engage muscles.
So in the osteopathic world, they use what’s called muscle energy techniques very effectively. There are two types of muscle energy techniques. Basically you either engage the agonist, which is the muscle you’re trying to stretch. So if you are, for example, trying to stretch your glutes, then you would engage that muscle, the glutes, there are three glutes, but let’s just call them, the glute complex. You would engage that with potentially something like a sideline hip abduction, where you really feel that tension developing in the back pocket area of your hip. And you would do that for, let’s say, 20 to 25 repetitions. There’s no specific strength, emphasis or anything like that. We’re just trying to bring blood flow to the muscle and engage the agonist. The actual technical term is called post isometric relaxations. So through a spinal reflex that is sent from the muscle to the spine and back to the muscles, Golgi tendon apparatus or organ, which is just a little part of the muscle that governs whether the muscle switches on or off, it then helps relax that muscle after at least 15 seconds of activating it.
And then what I like to do is take that joint and that muscle towards its end of range, with gentle mindful movements. So a favourite of mine for the glutes is a bench elevated 90/90 hip stretch. So you basically bringing your foot up on the bench and your knee and the outside of your shin. And the other leg is on the floor and you’re leaning forward with that hip and external rotation. So out to the side, you’ll get a really lovely glute stretch, but then what’s helpful is to take it towards end of range, gently and then hold isometrically or statically for about 20 or 30 seconds thereafter. So I’m normally programming 10 pulses towards end of range, plus a 20 to 30 second static hold. And I super set that with that activation work of that muscle. Another helpful technique to really fast track mobility gains, is known as reciprocal inhibition.
So we were talking about the glute, the agonist of the glute, if you’re activating it is called the agonist. The other side of the joint, the adductors would be called the antagonist. So there’s a similar reflex that is sent from the muscle to the spine and back to the muscle called reciprocal ambition, that when you’re activating one side of the joint. So let’s say the antagonist, the adductor muscles on the inside of the thigh in something like a lateral lunge, then the agonist, the muscles on the other side, have to switch off so that you’re not getting this tug and war between both muscle groups on both sides of the joint. So that is a helpful technique as well. And again, I would super set work that engages the antagonist. So it could be a lateral lunge or there’s a plank called a Copenhagen plank where you’re putting your foot up on a bench and you’re lifting your body up kind of in a side plank, but with the inside of one of the feet, hard to cue by audio.
But basically that will engage that muscle and help relax the other side of the joint. And then we’d go back into a very effective technique through 10 pulses or so, plus a hold for 20 to 30 seconds into that glute. So there are a couple of little hacks that can help relax tension that is just always there. So then you can take the joint and the muscle deeper into range and utilise that mindful approach with breathing, which is a really important point to help elicit a calming effect in the nervous system, because if your nervous system is sympathetically wired, so we have the sympathetic and the parasympathetic response, the sympathetic being the fight or flight, the parasympathetic being rest and digest. When we’re trying to improve our mobility and take our joints to towards end of range and then improve our flexibility in those areas, we want there to be a rest and digest response in the nervous system, so that parasympathetic response.
Now often with our busy lives and our three or four coffees a day for some, we’re in a constant state of fight or flight, like we’re always thinking a lion is chasing us, but we’re maybe not even aware of it. We’ve just got a slightly elevated heart rate. Our breathing is probably in the apex of the lungs rather than deeper down kind stimulating the diaphragm. So that’s normally where I start with mobility exercises, prioritising your breath, taking a nice long nasal breath, if possible, if you’re not coming back from COVID and taking that all the way down into the lower belly, even though you’re not really able physiologically to breathe into your stomach, it helps the diaphragm to descend down into your abdominal cavity. And that then increases the volume that the lungs can expand.
And it starts to immediately actually signal the vagus nerve, the 10th cranial nerve in the brain to calm the heart rate. So you’ve got all these feedback loops in the body that are there for the taking, if we can utilise the right tools and often that calm breath technique, plus a little bit of work with some of those muscle energy techniques activating the muscle you want to stretch or activating the other side and then stretching that muscle that you want to stretch. Those are very helpful. And then when you ask about mobility versus stretching, normally stretching refers to static stretching. So if your intention is to improve your range of motion, those mobility techniques are paramount plus as well, eccentric loading. So lengthening a muscle under load, for example, if you’re trying to lengthen the hamstrings, then you’re going to bend forward, for example, with a straight spine and a Romanian deadlift, you don’t even have to have that much load in your hands, but you are training the muscle to lengthen with control, but static stretching definitely still has a place.
And I often describe that place as more of a technique to bring about, again, a calming of the nervous system and just a really nice subtle habit for improving your head space and your mental health. I find that if I’m doing a bit of yin, so long holds, sometimes for three to five minutes in a stretch, it just really helps me drop deeper into that rest and digest part of the nervous system and calm my mind a little bit. There are still thoughts running around, but just to decrease the velocity of those thoughts perhaps, and it’s often a very nice thing before bed. So, just doing a few child’s poses and forward folds and holding a spinal twist for a minute or so each side, or as I mentioned longer, if you’re kind of having that yin emphasis.
And that will also improve the mobility or the motility of your fascia, the connective tissue in the body. So when you’re not activating muscles, then you are primarily stretching the passive structures, the connective tissue in the joints that wrap the muscles together. I mean, we have it around every cell in the body. So if you think of it like a spider web that resides within your body, then you’re just creating space from the inside out. So all those techniques have a place it’s just about what your intention is and when you use them in your daily routine.
Hannah:
And when we talked about the… In terms of breathing techniques to, I guess, relax, to reduce stress, are there any particular breathing techniques that we should or could look at to support movement patterns? So say cardio, so any cardio work or potentially strength and conditioning work, is there different ways that we should be considering our breath when we’re going about those exercises?
Darcy Stubbings:
Yeah, certainly. So when you’re talking about higher intensity exercise, let’s take weight lifting, for example. So on one end of the spectrum, you’ve got wanting to create as much abdominal pressure as possible to provide stability around the spine when lifting a load. So if you’re thinking about a squat, a barbell squat, or a dead lift, even a bench press, anything that requires you to lift a heavy load, then there’s a really helpful technique called the Valsalva technique, which is taking a deep breath in expanding your diaphragm down to create compression in the abdominal area. Also having the cue of gently squeezing in from all sides and lifting up from the pelvic floor muscles, that’s going to be the best breath technique to just support your spine as you’re lifting.
Hannah:
We could be doing that in everyday life too. It’s not necessarily, you need to be lifting barbell, but say, for example, picking up your kid from the floor.
Darcy Stubbings:
Yes,
Hannah:
You could include a little bit of that when you… Instead of just breathing out, picking up the child and it’s all into your spine, you could consider breathing in trying to brace that core before you pick something up so you’re not ruining you back.
Darcy Stubbings:
That’s a good point. However, to make matters more interesting. Some people over brace when they don’t necessarily need to, and that can lead to back pain or pain in the neck or the shoulders. So, that’s something as a physio, you’re often trying to understand about someone’s body. Is it an issue of not really having that stability there, not understanding how to utilise your breathing, to create stability and also muscular activation of some of the deep muscles around the lumbar pelvic area, or are people tenting too much? Quite often after childbirth, for example, the pelvic floor muscles can be too tense and really kind of stay on all the time. And it’s about learning how to relax those again, and then activating them when it’s most helpful. So yeah, it’s not as black and white as always bracing, but a hundred percent, if you are picking up anything, it’s important to be mindful about having some kind of gentle core activation.
So if you’re picking up a basket of clothes from the ground, I mean, the first thing to do is to put your body in a really helpful position so that you’re not overloading certain structures. So if you were to have a five kg of basket of clothes, I mean, those are some heavy clothes, but obviously winter in Hobart we’re looking at a lot of wool, then, you’re ideally squatting down into whatever ability you have into a deep squat and then bracing the core, like you said, and then lifting up from there, with the legs and the whole body, rather than just folding forward with straight legs, relaxing the spine, and then pulling up, which is going to certainly increase the chance of having a facet joint injury or a disc injury in the lower back. But again, if someone’s walking around, particularly someone who’s quite anxious and stressed and already in that sympathetic state, if they’re walking around bracing as much as they can, I mean, they’re probably going to blow a capillary.
Hannah:
Blow a fuse or something. Yeah.
Darcy Stubbings:
Yeah, exactly. But also, too much strain around joints, isn’t that helpful. So it’s having that balance. And I think when you’re lifting weights specifically, you really want to make sure that you are bracing as much as you can so that you’re able to lift the load. I mean, you’ve got to wonder, you got to ask the question. Why do I want to lift weights? Is it just something I really enjoy doing, or am I doing it just enough to kind of strengthen all the major muscle groups to prevent injury? It depends what lights you up. We’ve got a huge power lifting contingent at the gym that lift really heavy weights. And so they really need to rely on that breath technique. But when it comes to the mobility side of things, then a completely opposite breath technique is advisable.
So at the very least breathing equally. So, counting for three to four seconds on the inhale, have a subtle pause in between the inhale and the exhale, and then at least the same amount of breath out. If you breathe out for longer on the exhale, you tend to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is again, that rest and digest response that is very helpful for letting go of tension in the body. And if it’s the evening and you’re doing a little stretch practise, or even just meditating, you’re not even stretching, but you’re sitting there, maybe nice and comfy supported and trying to bring your nervous system down a notch, then extending the exhale is very helpful. I mean, I often use that in rest time between sets so that I can kind of bring my heart rate back down as quickly as possible. So when we do circuit training, if I’m noticing that I’m getting a bit dizzy or I’m just feeling the effects of being in the red zone, which is really fun, but also you want to not pass that.
Hannah:
You don’t want to be there for a huge amount of time. No.
Darcy Stubbings:
Yeah, exactly. Then how you utilise your breath in that rest period can be very impactful and extending your exhale, let’s say a three to four count on the inhale, and then a six to eight on the exhale can immediately switch on that vagus nerve, the 10th cranial nerve, which then calms your heart rate, calms your respiratory rate and the respiratory centres in the brain kind of kick in. So there are a lot of little techniques like that, that can be very helpful. And then one technique that I just find that’s lovely for a mindful approach is box breathing. So, having an inhale, for example, for four, a hold for four, an exhale for four, and then a hold after the breath out. For me, what that does, I mean, I’m sure there are some chemical benefits in terms of the CO2 concentration in your blood.
But for me, it just in that space between the breaths, it kind of stops me from just going to the next thing. I’m certainly an over thinker. I have a lot of things to do in a day and a lot of clients to see. So it’s quite helpful for me, particularly when I’m trying to diagnose something to really think quickly about everything that could be going on. However, when I get home, it’s not very helpful to getting effective, deep and REM sleep and for being stress free when I’m talking to my wife at home and I just want to have a nice conversation. Like if I’m still at that level of sympathetic stress, then it’s not benefiting the other areas of my life. So I find that having those pauses between the inhale and the exhale, and then after the exhale are just a really nice kind of hack of that.
Yeah. That going to the next thing straight away. And I find it really nice, particularly if you’re having a bath or something as well. We spoke about habits earlier. I think doubling down on habits is really effective. Like if you have the bath, you dim the light, set the candle, maybe play some Cary Lewincamp. I’m going to bring him up and give him… Whoever you’re playing and then work on 10 minutes of gentle breathwork doing the box breathing, progressively increasing the length of your breaths, but keeping the same ratio of one to one to one to one.
Hannah:
I guess it just brings a bit of stillness into the body. Doesn’t it? Because you are stopping.
Darcy Stubbings:
Yeah, exactly.
Hannah:
Not moving.
Yeah.
Yeah. No, I love that. I love that. And it’s something that if you don’t necessarily have the time for the bath, which that sounds amazing. I wish I was doing that right now. A little, I guess, mini challenge for you. Our listeners start to incorporate that in between you getting out of the car, for example, and getting inside and getting into your family life after a full day of work, it just gives you that little bit of time to switch off, to move into what’s next and just still and calm the body.
Darcy Stubbings:
That’s a great point. And that’s probably one of the most effective ways to use breathing to impact your day is just to take one breath and yeah, like you said, rather than just go onto the next thing straight away, pause, you can even put your hands on your stomach if that helps and then take a deep diaphragmatic breath, hold it for a few seconds and then just slowly release it. It can be the world of difference.
Hannah:
Well, I think I’ve taken up a lot of your time and we’ve gone over some pretty awesome stuff. So I’m going to wrap this up if that’s all right Darcy. But if our listeners, before you go, want to get in contact with you, how do they actually do that?
Darcy Stubbings:
Well, I am on the socials. I could be a little bit more present, I think, but I’m just busy in my day to day life. But yeah, I’m @drdarcyphysio on Instagram and TikTok. Although I’m a bit of a newbie, I feel like a young giraffe on TikTok. Just trying to find my way.
Hannah:
Better than me. I haven’t even tried it yet. It’s scares me.
Darcy Stubbings:
It’s the way of the future, but I’m 30, almost 33 now. So I know I’m not in the back end of my life, hopefully, but I’m certainly not TikTok savvy, but yeah, if you’re interested in getting my opinion on something you’re working through, then I’m at gtt.com.au/physiotherapy as well. So, always keen to have a chat with people and help them get back to the things they love. Yeah. But yeah, those are the three places you can probably find me otherwise I’ll be walking around Hobart trying to get a bit of vitamin D during the day.
Hannah:
Sounds good. Well, look, thank you so, so much for all your time, it was amazing to hear about your experiences and thank you for all the incredible insights. It’s been an incredibly educational conversation and I really, and the listeners really appreciate your time.
Darcy Stubbings:
You very welcome Hannah. Thanks for having me.
Hannah:
Have a wonderful rest of your day and for our Burn listeners until next podcast, have a fantastic day.
