I was introduced to the PRI school of thought whilst spending some time at Cressey Performance in December 2013. I was, quite frankly, pretty taken aback at the dramatic impact some simple breathing drills could have on my hip and shoulder range of motion, and that some niggly SI joint pain I'd had for years had 'magically' vanished. Needless to say - after getting back to the UK I was very keen to get into a bit more detail as to the hows and whys of PRI methodology and signed up for their certification program.
Now PRI courses are very anatomy heavy - and very technical in their descriptions of internal kinematics. Bit my attempt at a cliff note summary is below:
Human beings are hard wired to not die. When we talk about primal patterning - nothing is more 'functional' than staying alive. This is a key concept of how PRI methodologies work.
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Staying alive is important.And JT opening up his right chest wall helps him do this.[/caption]
The PRI thought process is that we as humans will adopt some postural changes as a result of both internal and external influences. Internal being the internal anatomical asymmetry we are all born with - larger chest cavity on the right side, thicker diaphragm leaflet on the right, heart and vena cava on the left - making it easier for us to collapse the right chest cavity than the left. Throw on top of that the right sided world we have created around us - where even the southpaws will generally have to reach for most things with their right hand and you can see why what PRI term the Left AIC Right BC pattern is so frequently adopted
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Left AIC Pattern.Credit: Postural Restoration Institute.[/caption]
So if we have settled into a posture like the one above - we have closed down the right mediastinum and created a less than optimal mechanism for respiration. However - respiration is a pre requisite for life - and we are hard wired to ensure that we can continue to exchange gas no matter what.
Now there lies the rub - a less than optimal respiratory mechanism will require greater assistance from the accessory respiratory muscles (lats, upper traps, legator ecap, scaliness, SCM) and start to create all kinds of associated problems relating to over activity or hyper tonicity in these areas - this list is seemingly endless and ranges from upper trap trigger points through to thoracic outlet syndrome, migraines and anxiety. But... as we need to breathe...we will use whatever means necessary to do so - and if that means recruiting all these other muscles to do it then so be it - it may screw us up - but at least we're not dead.... However, thats not the while story - now that we have figured out a new way to breathe, our in built survival mechanism will not actually permit movements that it sees as a threat to this new pattern. So if you are using your neck to breathe - your neck is 'on' - and don't expect it to be 'off' until you have fixed the pattern - all the stretching in the world won't solve that problem as the neural tension created is (as far as your nervous system is concerned) what is keeping you alive.
Now we know what the problem is then how do we fix it?
PRI non manual techniques are essentially taking the subject to the opposite posture of the one s/he is in (so typically externally rotating the right shoulder and ribcage and internally rotating the left hip) and carrying out controlled, forceful, diaphragmatic breathing in that new posture. The purpose of this is to 'trick' your nervous system into allowing inhibition of the overactive accessory muscles. In simple terms convincing yourself that coming out of the adopted posture is no longer a threat....
The list of PRI positional breathing drills is immense and way too long to go into here - but they are all built on that underlying principle of reversing the acquired posture - and learning to breathe there. Only when you can breathe there can you 'own' the new pattern you are trying to create.
So there it is - 20+ hours of lectures down to a few paragraphs and a John Travolta picture. Hope this summary is useful - and I highly recommend checking out the full PRI resources.
