Positional Release Therapy (PRT) is an indirect manual therapy technique aimed at releasing tension and therefore pain in muscle tissues and fascia, thus enhancing function. An indirect technique is an application of force away from a resistance barrier (putting slack in tissue). i.e. towards the point of greatest ease or relaxation as opposed to a direct therapeutic technique which would apply force against a resistance barrier. Examples of direct techniques would be joint mobilization, muscle energy and of course, stretching!

How does PRT work? Aside from being an indirect technique, PRT has two other main aspects. These are body positioning and tender points. The treatment starts by identifying the tender points. These are highly sensitive trigger points, located through the tissues and fascia that have come about largely as a result of trauma or musculoskeletal dysfunction. Once these points have been identified, the therapist uses a specific body position to switch off the affected tissues by shortening them and by placing the patient into a comfortable and very relaxed state, enabling the reduction of the sensitivity of these tender points.

 An osteopath named Laurence H. Jones in 1954 was the first to marry these three aspects of PRT and he discovered their combined worth, quite by accident. In an effort to take away his patients’ constant pain in his hip joint, Jones managed through trial and error to find a body position that was comfortable enough to allow the patient to get some much needed rest. To his total amazement, after having had the patient rest in that specific positioning, upon standing, the tenderness appeared to have largely subsided and the patient stood visibly more erect and posturally balanced. Jones called this discovery “strain and counterstrain”.

I can personally vouch for the incredible pain reduction of PRT. A Rugby injury in my lower rib intercostals caused me some breathing difficulty with sharp pains from the tender points. After 4 minutes of positional release the tender point was reduced by 60% and I was able to breathe deeply without restriction.

Here at “Stretch” we tend to use the manual (written by Kerry D’Ambrogio) almost in the same way as one would use a cookbook – one has to be so very exact in the application of PRT to get the best results, i.e. the greatest pain reduction.