Physical Therapy Products recently spoke with Tom Campanaro, president and CEO of efi Sports Medicine, San Diego, about the company's products and the future of the physical therapy market.

What kind of advances has the Total Gym undergone since it was invented in 1974?

Tom Campanaro

When we first created Total Gym in 1974, it had an A-frame ladder with four levels of resistance and rope cables. The rails were round steel tubing with zinc plating. It's much sexier now, but functionally, it has always offered a full range of motion, multiplane movement, and partial weight-bearing exercise. It was always versatile and accommodated all body types, sizes, and fitness levels. Now Total Gym is classier in design, and it has undergone several advances that better align its functionality with proper biomechanics. It now has a range of resistance from 3% to 72% of a user's body weight, and one can change the resistance up or down during an exercise in progress with the new motorized PowerTower model. That is huge for physical therapy patients and for athletes alike. Total Gym offers over 200 exercises and variations for strength training, Pilates, and stretching.

What is your most-used or most-requested equipment line?

Other than Total Gym, our PlyoRebounder with medicine balls and Functional Testing Grid are the popular choices for therapists and athletic trainers. These are staples, but our new GRAVITYSystem has outsold these standards since its launch in 2003. GRAVITY is our programming and education around the Total Gym GTS unit, and it is a turnkey business model designed to help health and wellness facilities provide fee-based fitness services that include Pilates, personal training, group sessions, and postrehab conditioning. This program is the main attraction right now for efi, as it is gaining recognition and success in private-practice clinics and hospital wellness centers around the country.

What do you see as physical therapists' future needs, and what is your company doing to accommodate them?

With diminishing reimbursements and loss of market share to personal trainers, we see the future growth for physical therapists revolving around their ability to offer highly sought-after services that create clients for life. In addition to treatment and therapy, their largest growth opportunity will be in fee-based health promotion, fitness, and wellness services, which will be the impetus for the rise of fully cash-based practices. Clinics will provide broader offerings with knowledgeable associates in the fields of massage therapy, nutrition, fitness, Pilates, acupuncture, and more. Clients will come to them through both the rehab entrance and the fitness and wellness entrance, and the six-to-12-visit relationship will exit. No longer will therapists be held hostage to reimbursement dollars and high receivables from third-party payors; nor will they be told that their services are only worthy of that reimbursement system. efi Sports Medicine is dedicated to the growth of the physical therapy profession and has offered its GRAVITY program to assist therapists in implementing the fitness piece of the wellness paradigm.