Essential Physical Therapy

08/14/2025

The most overlooked part of our deep core is our diaphragm.

Your diaphragm attaches onto your low back spine. When it’s positioned well it allows for the spine to:
* have a shock absorbing, spring like structure
* decompress in your lower back, upper back, and neck.
* Rotate freely

With stress, pain, shallow breathing, lots of time on screens etc, we stop using our diaphragm in its correct position. Now we have to use our neck and back to breathe, which is not their job. Our spine becomes rigid and inflexible. Ouch. 😖

So if you’ve done all the “core” work, and maybe it helps a bit but you’re still hurting or injuring yourself, you may be missing your diaphragm position. 😱

When your diaphragm is optimally positioned, it has a large area of contact with the inside of your ribcage. This area of contact is called a Zone of Apposition, or ZOA. When you restore your ZOA you get:
* Dynamic core stability
* Ball and socket like rotation of your spine
* Decompression of your low back and neck
* Easier, fuller breaths

In my balanced Breath and Movement Class series, I walk you through step by step how to restore your ZOA and then how to use that in everyday activities.

Comment ZOA below to get a link to the class series!

‼️AND for a limited time, I am offering 20% off before I take Maternity leave! 🤰

⭐️ Use code MATERNITY at checkout.

‼️This offer won’t last and I won’t be doing a discount like this again for a very long time, if ever.

Don’t miss out!

04/18/2025

🚨 FINAL HOURS! 🚨
The early bird pricing for the Balanced Breath + Movement class series ends in 3 days — and it won’t be back.

If you’ve been meaning to:
✨ Feel balanced + more grounded
✨ Ease daily aches and pains
✨ Improve your breathing + posture
✨ Move better so life feels easier…
This is your sign to jump in now.

These classes are short, powerful, and designed for real life. You’ll walk away with tools you can use every single day — sitting, standing, walking, living.

⏳ Don’t wait — early bird disappears in 72 hours.

Comment “balance” below to join before the price goes up!

Or head over to the link in my bio 🫶🏻

04/08/2025

It’s finally here!

Learn how to rebalance your body step by step with me in the Balanced Breath and Movement online self-paced Class series 🥳

*Early bird ends Tuesday April 22nd at 8 pm MST*

What you will get in the class series:

✅Each class has 12-15 videos that take about 15 minutes a day. It is self paced so you can take as much time as you need to move through it. 
✅Instructions on how to build your own home program so that it is tailored to you.
✅Handouts describing how to do each techniques for quick reference
✅Checklists for what to sense to know you’re “doing it right.”
✅Daily tips for applying techniques to life so they really stick.
✅Private community access for questions, discussion, and support.
✅Access to weekly live Q&A with Dr. Derya Anderson

Comment “balance” below and I’ll send you the link to sign up.

🎉Can’t wait to see you there! 🎉

03/03/2025

This posture is a little more complex because it is not what it seems!

It SEEMS like these rounded patients need to pull shoulders down and back, BUT that is one of the worst things they can do because…

It will likely cause them to push their lower ribs up, but what they actually need is to use their side abs (transverse abdomens and internal obliques) to anchor the lower ribs so that the upper ribs can EXPAND, thusly allowing them to be more upright.

Also, these patients need to expand the sides of their ribcage so that their pelvis can open in the frontal plane. They need to regain the ability to shift side to side by sensing air into their side ribs.

These techniques shown here are the BEGINNING of a program. It takes more work, but this is a great start.

Does this posture describe you or someone you know? (Don’t name drop them please 😅). Would you want to know what other techniques to do? Let me know in the comments👇

12/06/2024

It aligns our ribcage and diaphragm in a way that promotes natural rotation and neural flow without over tensing your back, neck or hips.

We can LOSE flexion as we challenge our body with stress, physical, mental or emotional. Extension is a protective pattern, which is good sometimes but not for all day, everyday.

Unfortunately many of us get “stuck” in extension and wonder why we don’t feel good.

Try a PRI functional squat (staying in flexion):
⭐️squat as low as you can, heels down, knees within arms, BACK ROUNDED meaning pelvis tucked and sternum back.
⭐️If you lose the rounded back, game over.
⭐️When starting with this you will probably not go very low and that’s okay! Staying rounded is most important.
⭐️Hold onto something for support so you can lean back and round more.

03/08/2024

Did you know?

There are some important things about the way our body works that are not common knowledge.

If you can understand these aspects of human function and optimize them, your body will be much happier, more balanced, and more functional.

If you’ve already lost some teeth, it’s okay. Depending what you still have in your mouth, you can still work on developing appropriate sense. An occlusal orthotic made with a PRI certified provider is a very useful tool to restore occlusal sense when you are missing teeth. The most problematic missing teeth tend to be molars and canines.

02/22/2024

We live in a patterned world.

There are many ways that our modern lifestyle drives us deep into our patterning, making it hard to alternate.

Some simple changes can help mitigate this patterning and restore balance and alternation to our body and nervous systems.

02/15/2024

What I love about PRI is that as an institute they strive to be consistent and always remind us as providers to document using the actual technique name, because the name describes exactly what you are doing in the technique.

And then you have those few where the nickname, who knows who came up with it, just sticks! I’m really trying here, but these are some of the ones I just can’t get out of my brain! 😅

01/19/2024

walking is not a conscious process. it is subcortical, literally “below the cortex.” This means that the wiring for walking is below the thinking level of the brain. It is in the unconscious automatic part of the brain, just like breathing, blinking, or swallowing.

A new study by Weersink et al demonstrates an important component of this unconscious wiring to walk- what our arms do will have a big impact on our leg muscles when we walk.

Our arms and shoulder blades should be free to move on our ribcage, and our ribcage should be free to move under our arms. If any of these processes are restricted, this will directly impact the function of your legs and pelvis during walking via this unconscious, subcortical wiring.

01/19/2024

01/10/2024

I just love a good Ron quote.

Scapular compression onto your rib cage is a critical occurrence for proper shoulder function. You cannot compress a scapula without the opposite heel pushing into the ground and sensing the ground pushing back up into it. This is what creates the foundation of the ribcage to be something able to be pushed against.

Because of the human pattern, it is harder for humans to do this with their right scapula/left heel than the opposite.