Configuring exercises for automatic injury substitution
The substitutes and body parts metadata are used together to prescribe appropriate exercise substitutes in case of injury. You can configure how you want automatic substitutions to work for each exercise.
BODY PARTS
The body parts section allows you to specify which body parts are used in the exercise. It's important to make sure that this information is accurate for all the exercises you commonly use. This is because FYTT allows you to record an injury to a specific body part for an athlete, and if the athlete is prescribed an exercise that utilizes the injured body part, then the system attempts to make an appropriate substitution.
The "Sided" toggle allows you to indicate whether or not the exercise can be performed one side at a time (unilateral). This setting is important, because FYTT can substitute a unilateral exercise in place of a bilateral exercise if an injury only affects one side of the body.
SUBSTITUTES
For any exercise in the database you can define substitute exercises that can be used in its place. If FYTT detects that an injury interferes with an exercise you've prescribed, it will look to see if you've configured any substitutes that would avoid the injury.
Substitutes should ideally include exercises that roughly accomplish the training objectives of the original exercise while avoiding injured body parts. This might include exercises that can be performed one side at a time or that put a lesser demand on key body parts such that an injury would not interfere with their performance.
Note: Substitute exercises will also need to be defined in your database and have accurate body part configurations in order for the substitution logic to work.
For example, if you include Barbell Lunge as a substitute exercise for Back Squat, make sure that you configure the body parts used for Barbell Lunge.
Also note that the substitute exercise either needs to have the "sided" option turned on, or it must specify that certain body parts are not involved in the exercise. For example, if you want a low back injury to trigger a substitution from Back Squat to Air Squat, you must configure Air Squat so that the low back body part is unchecked.
It's generally a good idea to loop in athletic trainers when configuring exercise body parts and substitutes.