Postural Reconstruction (PR®) is defined as a neuromuscular technique based on the concept that tonic imbalance in the muscular chains of the body leads to muscular shortening causing postural deformations, structural alterations, mechanical dysfunction, movement pattern disorder and pain. This training taught me a whole-body approach - to consider the musculo-skeletal system as one single system throughout the body with inter-dependent elements (muscle chains). So, you may have a problem in one area, but the whole system is affected and requires comprehensive attention for the area to improve. It taught me that, in many cases, there are adaptations occurring in the body that are unconscious, that are driven by a part of the brain that a person is completely unaware of and can’t affect with voluntary conscious will.

Normal movement involves a conscious will-driven action and a postural adaptation. The postural adaptation occurs by automatic processes involving certain parts of the brain and nervous system in concert with voluntary actions. For example, you reach across the table for the salt shaker. Your brain sends messages to your muscles to accomplish this task and simultaneously adjusts your body posturally so that your body’s integrity is maintained, without the need for you to consciously think of that, too! That is what is called postural muscle tone. There is not very much understood about how tone works in our bodies mainly because it is very hard to create a model of study that isolates the phenomenon. Both events (voluntary movement and postural tone) occur at the same time but by very different mechanisms. Exercise (strengthening, stretching) all involve the mechanism of voluntary conscious will. Postural Reconstruction® is concerned with the automatic mechanism of postural muscle tone and its impact on static posture, resultant movement possibilities and overall functional level.