Postural Restoration Institute: What Works, What Doesn't, and How I Use It Now

If you've ever gone down the postural restoration rabbit hole — whether as a practitioner or a patient — then this one is for you.

I've been in the rehab and training world for 15-plus years. I went all in on PRI for a while. I took the courses, obsessed over tests, and thought if I just followed their system to a tee, everything would work out — my patients would get out of pain faster, my own chronic pain would resolve, and mobility and strength would improve at a more efficient pace.

That's not exactly what happened. But it wasn't really that PRI was the problem. It was the way I was using it.

Here's a breakdown of the four biggest pros and cons I found with PRI, and how I've adapted the system to actually serve my goals and my clients' goals.

I go deeper into each of these points in the full video above.

How I Found PRI

I first found PRI in 2014 through a guy on Instagram called Bod Mechanic. I was going through serious pain in my shoulder and hip — labral tears — and his content resonated with me. He was getting wild results using tests and retests to change range of motion in real time, and I was immediately hooked.

That led me to take the three primary PRI courses, read through all their material, and start implementing everything I'd learned. I was nerding out hard and thought I'd found the system that would fit literally everything — for myself and my clients.

But in doing this, I made a huge mistake: I started adapting my goals and my clients' goals to fit PRI, instead of adapting PRI to fit us. Our actual goals — getting stronger, moving well, living pain-free — took a backseat to chasing the system.

Pro and Con #1: Assessments

The pro: PRI gave me a way to think objectively about movement and pain. It trained me to stop guessing and actually measure how someone moves, which made the rehab and training process much more objective. That mindset still influences how I coach today. When a client comes in with pain, I'm not just handing out generic stretches or banded external rotations. I'm assessing their specific movement patterns and using that data to guide what we work on.

The con: When a table test didn't improve mobility immediately, the instinct — mine and other practitioners I watched — was to shift to sensation. "What do you feel? Do you feel more left hamstring? Do you feel your right glute?" That instantly took PRI from objective measurements to something completely subjective, just because we didn't get the results we wanted.

The problem with sensation-based measures is that I can't feel what you're feeling and you can't feel what I'm feeling. It's an individual experience that's nearly impossible to communicate accurately. So instead of staying objective, I ended up chasing people's feelings and sensations — which is really just a dressed-up version of throwing stuff at the wall and hoping something sticks.

Pro and Con #2: Table Tests

The pro: Table tests gave me a common language to work with — Ober's test, straight leg raise, hip rotation, shoulder internal rotation. They showed me what was available in a passive position for myself and my clients, and that was extremely useful as a starting point.

The con: Table tests are passive. Someone else is moving your body. But what I actually need is for people to stand up and move their bodies independently. The passive changes I was getting on the table weren't bridging over to doing squats better or running more efficiently without pain.

The second issue is that table tests are extremely easy to manipulate, even unintentionally. I'm being brutally honest here — I've caught myself doing this. When you want your exercise to work, when you want to help someone and give them a positive experience, it's tempting to subtly assist them into a better position during the retest. It's usually not on purpose. But it's easy to lie to yourself and your client.

That's why I've completely switched to active assessments. Squats, toe touches, active hip flexion — if someone moves better on their own without my hands on them, that's a real win. It shows the body has actually changed with real movement, not just while lying on a table.

Active tests still have their limitations, and the temptation to fudge results is still there. But being brutally honest with myself — "did this actually change or didn't it?" — has led to much better outcomes. When something doesn't work, we troubleshoot or try a completely different exercise instead of moving on with false confidence.

Pro and Con #3: Breathing Drills and Correctives

The pro: I still love PRI's respiratory work. It's the best tool I've found to calm the nervous system, unlock tight ranges, and help clients break out of chronic tension patterns. If I had something better, I'd be using it. Every client I work with does some variation of a breathing exercise, especially early on.

The con: A lot of people — myself included — become obsessed with correctives at the expense of actual strength and longevity work. PRI can make you believe that breathing drills are the complete solution and that they need to be done every single day for the rest of your life. At least, that's how I perceived the education.

Breathing drills open up ranges of motion and improve mobility. But if you don't follow them up with strength training in that new range, you either lose it or you have to keep doing the drills to maintain it. It's like rebooting your computer but never actually installing the updates.

That's why every breathing drill I use now is followed by strength work — whatever exercises will create actual physiological adaptations in the new range of motion. When you marry the breathing exercises to strength work, plyometrics, or higher-level activities, the mobility sticks long-term. You're not just getting neurological changes — you're building muscle, strengthening connective tissue, and realigning collagen fibers. You're cementing the gains instead of having to re-up every day.

This even meant having clients do squats, bench press, and other movements that PRI might label as "extension-biased" or as reinforcing a PEC pattern. But these are movements that add muscle. And when we add muscle and strength, we add confidence. We're adding years to people's lives — something that finding neutral or improving 20 degrees of hip internal rotation just doesn't amount to on its own.

Pro and Con #4: The Education System

The pro: It's genuinely fun to geek out about biomechanics, neurology, respiration, and how the body works. I feel like a detective solving a puzzle. I've learned a lot about the body's asymmetries and gained a real appreciation for how holistically the body moves and functions.

The con: The complexity of PRI can create an overwhelming, almost cultlike bubble. As I took more courses, I kept getting sucked deeper into PRI thinking. I started avoiding heavy lifting because the education essentially communicated that anything extension-biased would set me back. I became obsessed with sensation during training — trying to "find the right muscles" during split squats instead of actually training anything meaningful from a strength standpoint. I was chasing my tail.

And I started believing PRI was the only way to fix movement. That's not critical thinking — that's dogma.

PRI has a culture, like many continuing education systems, that can reward obsession. But you have to remember: this is a continuing education system. It exists to explain concepts and supplement what you already know. It's not meant to completely replace how you view the body. If PRI were the single best system for training, longevity, rehab, and pain — why would thousands of other continuing education courses exist?

I went through a very similar process with Functional Patterns — different system, same dogma trap. I say this not as a dig at practitioners or at PRI itself. It's just the questions I had to ask myself when I was losing muscle, not seeing results, and needed to be honest about what was working.

How I Use PRI Now

The pivot point came when I asked myself: am I making PRI work for me, or am I working for PRI?

Here's how I approach it now:

I still use assessments, but I focus on active movement tests rather than table tests. I still use breathing drills, but only when they're followed by strength exercises and they produce real changes in active range of motion. I still pay attention to sensation, but I treat it as a proxy measure at best — not something I chase at the expense of objective results.

Most importantly, I've made PRI fit my actual goals: helping my clients get strong, pain-free, confident, resilient, and autonomous. They can do this stuff on their own. They don't need me constantly managing their breathing work or mobility training.

The Bottom Line

If there's anything you take from this, it's this: make postural restoration work for you. Don't find yourself working to please the system, your mentors, your practitioner, or anyone else. The education and information in PRI — which is genuinely good stuff — exists to help you. You are not meant to help it.

If you've felt stuck with postural restoration, whether you're a practitioner or a patient, I get it. I've been on both sides. It can be a lot and it can be overwhelming. But take a step back and ask yourself: what am I using this for? Do I just want to gain some muscle? Do I want to move well without pain? Is this actually helping me get there?

Those questions put things in perspective. Take the good from PRI that works, double down on it, and let the rest go.

Need Help Cutting Through the Noise?

If you're stuck in a PRI rabbit hole or you're just trying to figure out what your body actually needs, I offer a free posture and mobility assessment where we can look at your movement, identify what's actually limited, and figure out a plan that makes sense for your goals.

You can also check out the WaughFit app for structured programs that use the test-mobilize-load approach — the same framework that actually got me and my clients real results.

This post is based on my YouTube video "Postural Restoration Institute: What Works, What Doesn't, and How I Use It Now After 7 Years." Watch the full breakdown above or on my YouTube channel.