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Spooner Physical Therapy in Chandler is a familiar hosting location that is perfect for presenting PRI courses with a physical therapy staff always pushing for more knowledge and this weekend was no exception. This diverse group of practitioners from physical therapy, chiropractic, occupational therapy and even Feldenkrais Method attended Postural Respiration with “spot on” questions and observations every step of the way during the weekend.

For almost half of the class Postural Respiration was their first PRI course. The topics of anatomical asymmetries, delivery of airflow sense, and the fact of lateralization to one side of the body driven by dominate polyarticular chains of muscle directed by “functional cortical dominance” was completely new to many. The form and function of the thorax driven by delivery of air into the chest wall as it related to center of mass to one side of the body is always a critical point as well as remembering that it is a neurologically driven system along with anatomical asymmetries and asymmetrical air flow that affect movement and function of the entire physiological system.

The first course, with many to follow in PRI, can be a “paradigm shift” that leads to a greater understanding of the patient or client we are working with. The attendees of this course were so energetic and curious and it was a pleasure working with every student that attended. Thank you so much to all of you that travelled especially Zak from Canada, Mary from Los Angeles, and everyone else that took time out of their busy lives to attend Postural Respiration. Thank you very much to Kathleen at Spooner for not only being my driver, but along with Aishwarya, and Erin getting to the facility early and staying late to set up and break down on Sunday the facility for all of us. A big thank you to all three for helping to facilitate this weekend. And thank you to all of the students for attending this weekend and we hope to see you further down the road on your PRI journey of exploring and discovery!

– Skip George

Job Description: Movement Coach

Location: Bay Area CA

Position Type: Full Time

About Us

All Systems Health was founded with the goal of creating worldwide access to top-tier health interventions and unified decision-making to navigate towards a better quality of life. We combine the knowledge base of several disciplines (currently 14) to deliver mastery-level health intervention on a complex human system. With an interdisciplinary team of professionals, we are empowering the individual to work more efficiently towards their peak health. The Movement Department is specifically working on creating the most comprehensive generalist movement program that exists to guide individuals through endless progressions of movement throughout a lifespan. All Systems Health is an unadvertised small business located in Silicon Valley CA.

Job Description

All Systems Health is seeking a full-time movement coach that is capable of transitioning physical therapy patients and clients to embark on a lifelong fitness program. You must be comfortable coaching and programming for a broad base of movement skills such as weightlifting, yoga, running, gymnastics, parkour, calisthenics, etc. Movement table testing is expected to be utilized.

Clients are typically highly educated consisting of CEO/founders, PhDs, engineers, physicians, dentists, authors, VCs, professional athletes, etc. The expectation is to educate the client so they can train themselves in a way that maintains the benefits of physical therapy and protects their long-term health while still achieving their fitness goals. Long-term relationships with clients are expected while simultaneously minimizing the number of coaching sessions to ideally 1-2 per month.

Priority will be given to those candidates that have experience with movement table testing, broad personal exposure to different movement backgrounds, monitoring biomarkers through technology/testing, research experience in exercise physiology, and are comfortable working in a high-standard environment. Expect you will be working with talented, motivated, intense, and interesting co-workers and external providers. You must be willing to relocate to the Bay Area/Silicon Valley.

Responsibilities

• Coach 30 clients/wk on all programmed movements for a 1-month plan in 70 minutes.
• Use table testing as feedback to change coaching, exercise selection, and fundamental program design.
• Ability to communicate with other medical and health professionals.
• Contribute to the overall design of the generalist movement program blueprint.
• Create, maintain, and enter biomarker and training log information in databases.
• Contribute to movement model through self-directed learning.
• Synthesize exercise physiology research to contribute to assessment model.
• Maintain cleanliness and organization of the gym/clinic and work computer/cloud.

Requirements

• Bachelor of Science or CSCS certification.
• BLS/CPR certification.
• Excellent communication with PTs/medical professionals, office staff, and educating clients.
• Ability to be organized and systematic in coaching.
• Personal experience with several movement disciplines.
• Self-directed learner.

Compensation

• $70k-150k performance-based salary
• Full benefits
• Scheduled mentorship

To Apply

• Please submit your resume and cover letter to Joe Cicinelli at Joe@allsystemshealth.com.

Another wonderful class attending Pelvis Restoration. They appreciated the details and analytical design of the course to understand the pelvic inlet and outlet to assist with forward movement and function. They had amazing questions and enthusiasm for learning. This enhanced how the PRI testing and tests could assist them with clinical outcomes. This group gave me energy! Thank you!

Thank you Tassie Cantrell for assisting me this weekend.  Your expertise and experience is a gift.

To Karen and the rest of the staff at One on One Physical Therapy—thank you for hosting and for your interest in the science of PRI.  You all rock!

– Lori Thomsen

The Postural Restoration Institute hosted the most recent rendition of Postural Respiration, with both an in-person and virtual group of movement professionals. They gathered with curious minds to learn about the human species’ propensity for patterned, inefficient respiration that directly leads to patterned, inefficient movement. PRI experience among attendees ran the gamut, from in-person attendee Jodi Reerink, PT, PRC, who has been around since PRI’s inception, to Drake Krogh, PTA, who was in-person for his very first continuing education course out of school.

Attendees gained newfound respect for the most important, and arguably least-understood, skeletal muscle in the body: the thoracic diaphragm, with its left-side/right-side differences in form and function. The diaphragm partners with other key muscles to direct airflow in and out of the body. This alternating, cyclical compression-decompression is sensed, not only within the lung tissue and rib cage, but also within our extremities and its corresponding joints and muscles. This sense informs the brain about position so that the brain, in turn, can direct the neuro-muscular system to preserve upright orientation.

When we lose hemi-diaphragm form and function, our movements become hijacked by overactive chains of muscles – namely, the right brachial chain, left anterior interior chain, and bilateral posterior exterior chains. As these chains exert their over-influence on movement, we become vulnerable to many of the syndromes that we treat: shortness of breath, headaches, thoracic inlet/outlet, and chronic overuse injuries. Our PRI tests and observations reflect these chains’ overactivity. Our PRI techniques re-establish the hemi-diaphragms’ form and function, the key to subduing these chains. If you aren’t incorporating airflow assessment and treatment into your patients’-clients’ programs, then you are depriving them of the key piece to rehab and recovery.

We are grateful to Katie Hedlund, DPT (fellow PT and PRC Christy Peterson’s mini-me); Hannah Horne, DPT; Dale Jensen, Feldenkrais practitioner; and Megan Kirwan, DPT, for their willingness to act as patient models for lab demonstrations of assessments and techniques. Thank you to all who asked questions, allowing deeper discussion of concepts. I hope to see many of you again at future courses!

– Louise Kelley

Job Description: Physical Therapist

Location: Midtown Manhattan, NYC

Position Type: Full Time or Part Time

Category: Therapy

Company Overview At IPA Manhattan Physical Therapy, we blend advanced manual therapy techniques with targeted therapeutic exercises to foster holistic health and well-being. We understand that pain can significantly affect your quality of life, which is why we take a personalized approach, considering physical, emotional, and lifestyle factors that contribute to discomfort. Alongside Functional Manual Therapy, our clinicians integrate leading methodologies from The Postural Restoration Institute, Barral Institute, Stecco Fascial Manipulation, and Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS), ensuring comprehensive, patient-centered care for every individual.

Manual Therapy Focus

Are you a driven Physical Therapist ready to take your skills to the next level? Join IPA Manhattan Physical Therapy—the premier clinic in NYC for over 14 years—where our therapists are Certified Functional Manual Therapists. Experience a culture built on mentorship, weekly in-services, and one-on-one training to refine your manual therapy expertise.

Why IPA Manhattan?

• $5,000 sign on bonus
• One-hour treatments in private rooms
• Generous salary based on experience with bonus opportunities
• Collaborate with top MDs and allied healthcare professionals
• Full benefits (PTO, 401K matching, healthcare)
• Work within a supportive, expert team focused on manual therapy excellence

Be part of a practice that delivers an unparalleled patient experience while helping you reach your professional goals.

Education and Experience

Licensure Requirements

• Current Physical Therapy licensure in state of NY
• Must have an interest in manual therapy and desire for mentorship

How to apply

Please email your resume and cover letter to michelle@ipanyc.com.

I had the pleasure of traveling to the West Coast this past weekend to teach Pelvis Restoration. This course is an amazing integrated primary course to introduce concepts of respiration that affects not only the thorax but also the pelvic floor AKA pelvis diaphragm. I was joined by my husband Chris Poulin. Chris is an Athletic Trainer and strength coach. I am always happy to have him join me, but especially to be able to answer application questions for the wellness providers in the class.
It was an awesome weekend teaching concepts of Pelvis Restoration to a diverse group of clinicians. We enjoyed discussing inlets and outlet position of the Left AIC, PEC and Patho PEC patterns. An important concept we delved into was how these neurologic patterns created compensatory movement patterns that can affect internal pressures of air and gas.

These faulty breathing patterns can result in a variety of pelvic floor conditions as well as IS dysfunction and lower back dysfunction.
It was great to see an area of our country that was so tragically affected by the wildfires beginning to heal from the devastation. Thank-you Henry Mayo staff and course attendees for making Chris and I feel so welcomed!

– Jennifer Poulin

We are excited to announce and congratulate the Postural Restoration Certified™ (PRC) Class of 2024! This was a special week for us as we conducted PRC credentialing following our 22nd year of the Advanced Integration course, and heading into our 25th year as an institute! From the first class in 2004 to this most recent group of clinicians, we have had 257 clinicians complete PRC credentialing, spanning 38 states and 7 countries. You can search for PRI credentialed providers on our Find a Provider map.

PRC credentialing is the result of completing multiple advanced PRI courses, demonstrating a thorough understanding of the science through completion of the PRC application, and successfully participating in practical and analytical testing. Earlier this week, 7 clinicians earned the designation of Postural Restoration Certified™ (PRC) under the direction of Ron Hruska, Kasey Ratliff, Skip George, and Jennifer Platt.

The Postural Restoration Institute® established this certification process in 2004 as a way to recognize and identify those individuals with advanced training, extraordinary interest and devotion to the science of postural adaptations, asymmetrical patterns and the influence of polyarticular chains of muscles on the human body as defined by the Postural Restoration Institute. The PRC credentialing program is available to physical therapists, physical therapist assistants, occupational therapists, and chiropractors who have attended PRI courses, demonstrated a thorough understanding of the science through completion of the PRC application, and successfully participate in both clinical and analytical testing.

CLICK HERE to view the full photo album.

Back Row: Robert “Skip” George, Yoshi Fujii, Marlyn Bravo, Desiree Parham, Joshua Speckman, Jennifer Platt

Front Row: Ron Hruska, Mayami Oyagani, Brynn Babb, Saundra Brogan, Kasey Ratliff

In the seventies there was, and still is, one of my favorite rhythm and blues band from the Bay Area of California named “Tower of Power”. Their best known album is “Back to Oakland”, and this past weekend PRI was back in Oakland at Alta Bates Medical Center Physical Therapy where Cervical Revolution was hosted. Cervical Revolution is the conduit to introducing bottom up as well as top down concepts from the cervical spine, cranium, and occlusal system that first require an understanding of the most important neurologic articulation in the body called the atlas and occipital bone. This is where the brainstem is located and is highly sensitive to position, movement, and especially pressure from a head that is forward on a neck that has lost its normal 30 degrees of lordosis. If that 30 degrees is lost, then 30 degrees of mid-cervical lateral flexion and 30 degrees of rotation is lost as well.

The cervical spine, or “tower of power”, on which the cranium is supported, needs to be free to rotate driven by bilateral muscle balance in all three planes of movement coordinated together. When the body is patterned, or repetitively shifted to a dominant side, the neck knows it and responds with a predictable sequence of deep muscles called the TMCC, or the temporal, mandibular and cervical chain. There are eight muscles on each side of the cervical spine, cranium and jaw that compose the TMCC and when one side becomes dominant, and it always starts with the right, it then becomes difficult, if not impossible, to fully shift the mass of the entire body to the left. This weekend the beginning description of  Cervical Revolution is that this is a right stance course! Through the L AIC, the right BC, and the right TMCC, humans all become laterally shifted to the right side driven by neurologic, respiratory, and anatomical asymmetries and bias. In this course there was ample time for demonstration and lab starting with five objective tests for the cervical region that assesses movement in all three planes of the cervical spine with a mantra 30-30-30! Non-manual techniques where then provided to not only provide re-positioning to neutral but for the ability to alternate and rotate side to side.

Referring back to the musical album “Back to Oakland”, there is a famous song called, “So Very Hard to Go”, and with one of the tests, Cervical Axial Rotation, it is typically “very hard to go” or rotate to the left! In fact, our functional cortical dominance makes it difficult to shift and rotate a pelvis onto the left leg as well as the right, internally rotate a left ribcage for delivering air pressure sense into a ribcage, and even establishing a better visual field on the left in order to alternate back and forth left to right side! When patterns and position become dominant over time in the neck, pathology in the body and even the cranium will be a consequence.

This course also provides an understanding on how the TMCC’s on either side of the neck are needed to be balanced to provide stability of the neck and allow proper mastication with a jaw. When you aren’t chewing, a jaw needs to be free to shift side to side just like the rest of the body to help keep a neck free and mobile! If the neck is not stable, then muscles of mastication become dominant on one side further reinforcing a biased pattern and position that does not allow for balanced alternation of the entire body side to side. If the muscles of mastication are attempting to stabilize a cervical spine and cranium, then the cervical spine muscles attempt to aid and abet chewing which further reinforces this pattern called the right TMCC! This whole process in this course begins with the atlas and occipital bone position and expands into the cranium including the sphenoid, temporal bones and mandible. If atlas and occipital bones aren’t free to rotate, oscillate or alternate, the rest of the body will know it including the cranium, jaw and visual system!  Not only that, but the CNS, ANS, and RAS will be affected over time simply starting with the atlas and occipital bone. This is why Cervical Revolution is the gateway to our tertiary courses!

Two of the students in this course I met five years ago at this facility when I taught Postural Respiration and thank you Shaun and Joan so much for hosting PRI and providing such a professional space to work and teach in. Shaun and Joan get there early and leave late to facilitate the success of every course attendee. And thank you both for being my drivers! Austin and Maxwell, great to see you again after teaching Postural in Sacramento in April 2024 and for your trust to return to a secondary course. Sura, Jai, Nick, Tin your presence and questions moved us along in a most helpful way and was just great. Morgan, thanks so much for coming in from Juneau, Alaska! That is a long haul and your questions where so helpful. And Holly! All the way from Vancouver, Canada to attend your first live course after taking all of the primary courses remotely. Your life experience, responses to techniques and questions helped teach the course. I also have to include everyone in that sentence as well in terms of what you brought including interest, energy and best of all, curiosity.

-Skip George

It was a world champion kind of weekend in Scottsdale as 3 attendees were part of the LA Dodgers organization! We had a variety of attendees from chiropractors, ATCs, strength & conditioning/personal trainers, and physical therapists. The morning started off learning the intricacies of the terminology (based on osteopathic terminology) when discussing position of the pelvis and femur and how significant this can be before initiating treatment.

I love that this course offers so much lab time to test and discuss the objective measures to confirm the didactic material from the morning. Learning the Hruska Adduction Drop Test was our confirmation bias for the left anterior chain pattern as identified in all attendees this weekend. We ended the day with repositioning techniques and learning about respiration and the value of an exhalation.

The next day, the Hruska Adduction lift test humbled most as we assessed the ability to be able to “shift” successfully in the frontal plane. We discussed treatment at all levels of this lift test to be able to prescribe treatment appropriately. I took a “patient” through the myokinematic hierarchy and it was valuable seeing the progress in the ability for the patient to obtain neutrality and improve on the lift scores within just a few techniques. The power of PRI never ceases to amaze me. Thank you to our gracious host Dynamic Performance and Brennan Hodge for the awesome hospitality.

– Kasey Ratliff

It was great to be back in the Windy City teaching Pelvis Restoration.  Thank you Donna and Pilates Central for hosting us this past weekend. It was a weekend filled with new course attendees and others expanding their journey in PRI.  The “brain twists” this weekend:

1. The pelvic diaphragm (floor) has a left and right side.
2. Muscle don’t have origins and insertions, but rather attachment sites and can influence the position of bones.
3. The frontal plane importance of our ability to move side to side.
4. The concept of compression and decompression with position and airflow.
5. How the pelvis influences the spine all the way up to the neck and all the way down to the foot and ankle.

The energy and enthusiasm for this science was high and the quest to learn more from these practitioners was astounding.

Thank you for the gift of time and allowing me to teach.

– Lori Thomsen

“An Interdisciplinary Approach in the Intervention of Patterned Visual Orientation and Visual Perception”

By Ron Hruska

Vision is the product of the interaction of four components, anti-gravity, centering, identification, and the speech-auditory process. This is the first sentence of the introductory section of the course, and was written by AM Skeffington in his 1964 ‘Introduction of Clinical Optometry’ course. The anti-gravity system is responsible for balance and posture. The centering system is defined as an attentional and orienting system for selecting where the body, head and eyes are directed.

Our hemi-environments, and their associated occupancy of our body, require vertical visual vestibular vigilance. How we direct ourselves, place ourselves, and use the space activity around us and the air-flow in us, all depend on our midline and center experiences, as related to our vestibular sense and visual perception.

A course attendee wrote, “I am pouring over the course notes and your attention to detail for this course was so well done!!!  I appreciated how you took each journal article and highlighted the importance of what you gained from their insight regarding vision, sensory input, pedal sense, and the ability move forward.”

Another attendee wrote, “I appreciate all the work and research that went into this. The recognition of all of the research considered was important for the optometrist that attended the course with me. I think that was quite valuable and I appreciated the main points of how to recognize the value of ground-up position and input before refraction was stressed . .. “

Our mechanoreception is built around standing and upright movement on two feet, using two upper extremities, and the cortical visual processing associated with this upright proprioceptive control. Therefore, this course outlines how to arrive at binocular alignment at distance, when standing, to reduce misalignment tendencies, overuse of visual vergence, and visual vestibular instability related to depth imperception.

If you want more information on how to clinically involve and incorporate both eyes with both feet, equally, as much as possible, for acceptable vertical behavior, then this course was organized and is being offered for you.