The WHY Behind The One80 System, Function Not Symptoms

If you're an athlete, you'll appreciate learning more about our physical therapy for CrossFit athletes in this video/podcast. At Breaking Through, our physical trainers have carefully chosen The One80 System as the process through which we restore movement and reduce pain.  Dr. Rhett Polka, founder of The One80 System®, joins Froning & Friends, a regular podcast of 4x "Fittest Man on Earth," Rich Froning Jr., CrossFit athlete,  and 1st place, CrossFit Mayhem, in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2021 in the CrossFit Teams division.

After working for other medical facilities, the Physical Therapists at Breaking Through saw how ineffective stretching, massage and conventional physical therapy was to restore movement and eliminating pain in patients long term.  When we started working with the One80 System, we found that applying this approach to our patients delivers better results, with long-lasting success, in less visits.

CrossFit Physical Therapy: Focus on Functionality Rather than Pain

"When people come to see me, they think they're coming to me because they have pain. I know they're coming to see me because they're dysfunctional and the disfunction is what causes the pain.... I could do a whole bunch of things to take away your pain that would NOT solve your problem. I would rather solve your problem and that takes away your pain, so that you don't have to keep coming back to see me."
- Dr. Rhett Polka of The One80 System.

In this video excerpt, Dr. Rhett explains how the One80 System is unique in the way it is designed to focus on function. In this method of practicing physical therapy, every time you see a patient, whether it's an initial evaluation or a follow-up visit, your Physical Therapist performs a "functional screen."

Have you ever seen a Physical Therapist who asked, "how does your arm feel?" "How is it moving?" Did range of motion improve since our last session?"  These are traditional methods relying on the patients' knowledge of their own body. However, we know the body is course-correcting all the time.  Without us knowing it, our bodies will compensate for a muscle failure or lack of mobility by engaging other muscles to adapt.

During this functional screen process your PT is diagnosing why the patient can't function normally, without pain. Part of this process is to test muscles in a neuromuscular facilitation tests. By performing these tests on each patient, in each visit, our Physical Therapist determine which muscles are failing.