ArCTIC, a sports and injury prevention clinic, has been able to successfully help clients recover, train and reach peak athletic performance with the help of a FitQuest machine, installed in their Arlington-based facility since 2016.
ArCTIC, which stands for Arlington’s Coaching-Training & Injury Centre, provides nutrition services, personal training, run coaching and fitness assessments. The centre is part of Schreffler Chiropractic, a clinic dedicated to providing and restoring health and wellness with specific expertise in assisting athletes reach peak performance.
Owned and operated by Krista and Dr. Keith Schreffler, the business is centred around a holistic view of a person’s health. The pair firmly believe that health is a complete and total sense of wellbeing, not just the absence of disease. For years, they tried to use quantifiable means to measure a person’s overall health and happiness with the goal of being able to find a so-called “life quotient.” It was this desire that led them to FitQuest.
Dr. Schreffler was immediately drawn to the fact that the machine can provide an overall picture of a person’s health with one simple score using classic sports science parameters. In just four minutes, their patients can measure upper body strength, upper body endurance, lower body strength, lower body endurance, explosive power, leg speed, balance, and cardio strength.
“Once we get you out of pain, we educate our patients on how to stay out of pain. FitQuest helps us do that,” he said.
In Arlington, the competition in the fitness industry is growing exponentially. Within a one-mile radius, there are dozens of boutique gyms. By adding FitQuest to their offering, Krista says that it allows them to offer something different. “We’re not trying to compete with these gyms. We’re using FitQuest to provide a different type of training.”
The unique offering has proven popular with trainers from local Orangetheory clubs, a privately-owned fitness franchise offering HIIT-style workouts. Orangetheory focuses on getting members into the “orange zone,” tracking their heart rate to measure performance. The philosophy and emphasis on quantitative measurements to assess fitness appealed to the trainers who have come to test their own fitness scores with FitQuest and the team at ArCTIC.

In combination with Functional Movement Screens (FMS), the team uses FitQuest to help identify asymmetry or weaknesses in the body. Once the weakest link is identified, the doctors can create bespoke programmes with corrective exercises to help their clients recover or improve. “We use FitQuest to test and retest our clients to measure progress and ensure the body is functioning symmetrically. Our knowledge, combined with FitQuest, is the perfect way to put together a training programme.”
FitQuest sometimes reveals some surprising results for clients. An elite athlete training with ArCTIC found that her FitQuest scores were below average. Krista discovered that this client scored poorly on balance and explosive power, common weaknesses in endurance runners. As a result, the doctors were able to create a programme to address these challenges.
Together, with the FitQuest machine, the team has also conducted 6 and 8-week challenges with clients who were able to demonstrate significant improvements in their overall fitness in a short span of time.
“The ability to provide our clients with a quantifiable measurement of their fitness fits perfectly with our company ethos,” said Krista. “Not only can the machine help us create programmes to rehabilitate our clients and help them lead pain free lives, it can also help make them faster and stronger too.”
For more information on ArCTIC, go to http://www.arcticva.com/