Postural Restoration Institute

Posture is a reflection of the "position" of many systems that are regulated, determined and created through limited functional patterns. These patterns reflect our ability and inability to breathe, rotate, and rest, symmetrically with the left and right hemispheres of our axial structure.

"Limited functional patterns" refers to movement that is restricted in directions, planes or normal boundaries of functional range, as a result of improper joint, muscle, and mediastinum rest position. Function is therefore limited because soft tissue and osseous restrictions prevent one from using muscles and joints in their normal range. Adaptation and compensation for these limitations require neuromotor encoding and hyperactivity of muscle that is placed in improper positions that exceed normal physiological length, or in positions that make them a mover or counter-mover in planes and directions that are not observed when one is in a neutral or more symmetrical state of rest. This compensatory activity and hyperactivity usually becomes dysynchronous in the accessory muscles of respiration and at the appendicular flexors and axial extensors, thus limiting functional rotation at the trunk and through the lumbo-pelvic-femoral and cranial-mandibular-cervical complex.

- Ron Hruska Jr., MPA, PT