Home exercise program builder

The programme that gets done is short, specific and on paper. Set the band colour, the sets and reps, the hold and the effort target, then print one page the patient takes home.

  • 1

    Sit-to-stand from a dining chair

    Yellow · easiest

    Push the floor away; hinge from the hip, not the low back.

    3 × 10 · RPE 12

  • 2

    Prone press-up

    Yellow · easiest

    Let the hips stay heavy on the mat.

    2 × 10 · hold 3s · RPE 12

  • 3

    Banded row

    Green · moderate

    Elbows past the ribs, shoulders down.

    3 × 12 · hold 2s · RPE 12

  • 4

    Side-lying hip abduction

    Red · light

    Heel leads, toes stay level.

    3 × 12 · RPE 12

Repetitions a week, if they do it all

610

Four exercises on 5 days. Adherence falls off a cliff past about fifteen minutes — if this list is longer than the patient’s attention, cut it rather than hoping.

Ink-and-wash drawing of an exercise mat by a window with a band and a ball
A mat by a window — where a home programme actually happens.

Four exercises, not twelve

Adherence is the whole game, and it collapses with length. Four movements at fifteen minutes gets done; ten at forty-five gets abandoned in week two and then gets reported as “doing them most days”. Pick the four that carry the plan and let the rest wait.

Colour is not a standard

Band colours are a manufacturer convention, not a specification: one brand’s green is another’s red. The bar on each card here is ordered by tension and always carries the word beside it for that reason — and the patient should leave with the physical band, not just its name.

Give the effort a number

“Until it feels hard” means nothing across two patients. A Borg number does — see the RPE scale — and it survives a patient who cannot count reps but knows what 13 out of 20 feels like once you have taught it once.

One cue per exercise

The cue field is limited to a line on purpose. A patient can hold one instruction per movement while they are also counting; the second cue displaces the first. Choose the one that changes the movement most and leave the rest for the clinic.

Print it, do not email it

A page on the fridge is seen every day; a PDF in an inbox is seen once. The print button strips the site chrome and leaves the handout — the band bars and the numbers print in colour because they carry meaning.

Red flag — refer out

Exercise is not the answer to progressive neurological loss, unexplained weight loss, or pain that is worsening night on night against a reasonable plan. Refer.

Sources

Keep reading

Range of Motion Chart

Normal ROM by joint and plane, with the measured value scored against it.

Pain Scale

An interactive 0-10 numeric rating scale with the wording each anchor uses.

Borg RPE Scale

The 6-20 and 0-10 Borg scales side by side, with a target zone readout.

DASH Score Calculator

Score the 30-item DASH disability questionnaire and read the result.