How to build an exercise programme for a patient
From an empty form to a programme the patient sees in the portal — with weeks, dosage, videos and progression built by copying a week.
A programme is the list of exercises the patient gets to do between visits. It has a fixed structure — week, day, exercise — and every exercise carries its own prescription. The patient sees in the portal exactly the values you enter, so it is worth going through this form carefully once and copying afterwards.
How to do it
Create the programme
On the Programs list click Create Program. Fill in the Program Title, choose the Patient, the Program Type (Training, Diet, Treatment, Custom), the Difficulty Level and the Frequency. The Est. Duration (min), Description / Instructions and Link to Treatment Plan fields are optional.
Lay out the weeks and days
Add Week creates the next week of the cycle, Add Day the next day within that week. Inside a day you click Add Exercise.
You can type an exercise in by hand or pull it in with the library picker from the exercise catalogue — the name, description and instructions then fill themselves in. You change the order of exercises within a day by dragging the handle on the card.
Fill in the prescription for every exercise
Every exercise card has Sets, Reps, Duration, Weight, Rest and Tempo (four phases, for example 2-1-2-0).
Coaching Cues are read by the patient while performing the exercise; Patient Notes are for individual caveats, an adjustment of the load for instance. Tick Optional exercise if it should not count towards programme compliance.
Attach a video or a material
The add-video control offers three sources: Materials Library, URL and Upload. Separately, with Add Material, you attach a PDF or a photograph from the materials library.
The limits: 5 attachments per exercise, of which at most one video, and 10 attachments for the whole programme.
Build progression by copying a week
Copy Week moves every exercise from one week to another and lets you raise the load at the same time: +N reps or +N weight. If the target week already has exercises, copying adds to them rather than replacing them.
Separately, every exercise has Progresses from, Progression Level and When to progress fields — they build a chain of harder variants, visible in the Progression tab together with the Advance to Next Level button.
Activate the programme
A saved programme has the status Draft. On the programme card click Activate — only from that moment does the programme count as running: it enters the compliance reports and the weak-week reminders.
Give the patient a printout if they have no portal
Export PDF prepares a list of exercises broken down by week and day, with sets, reps, load, rest, tempo, and the cues and notes. For exercises with a video the document gives the link. Heltio acknowledges with PDF exported.
Heltio does not e-mail that file. You save it and hand it to the patient, or leave it for them to download from the portal.
When something does not work
Program was created but some exercises could not be saved. You have been redirected to the edit page to fix missing items.
What this means: The programme saved, but some exercises did not get through — usually on a dropped connection mid-save.
Please select a patient
What this means: The programme is not a template, so it has to have a patient assigned.
Only one video attachment per exercise item.
What this means: The exercise already has a video attached.
You have unsaved changes. If you leave now, all changes will be lost.
What this means: Leaving the editor before saving.
Who has access
Practitioner Clinic AdminRelated
- Exercise programmes — the full description of the fields, statuses and limits.
- Patient compliance — what you see when a patient stops exercising.
- How to add an exercise to the catalogue — when something is missing from the catalogue.