Practical Guide - Rehab testing

By Lode Goossens, Sports physiotherapist and Sports scientist (Ghent University) and founder of Hylyght.

0. General information

Rehab for patients aims to improve patients’ quality of life by measuring their physicality through pre-existing tests to tailor a suitable recovery program.

If you want to screen a healthy person, Injury Prevention might be the solution you're looking for.

The general idea is to test patients’ strength, flexibility, anthropometrics and physical progress during and after a rehabilitation process. It is often used by medical doctors and physiotherapists.

1. Introduction to the Hylyght platform

1.1 Set up your account and log in

When you start using the Hylyght platform for the first time, We will set up an account for your organisation and we will add the contact person(s) as admin(s). Instructions on how to log in for the first time will be sent to the e-mail address you gave up when subscribing. If you did not get the login yet, but you want to start testing soon, contact

Log into the platform via https://app.hylyght.com, and use your temporary password to log in. You will be asked to create a new password immediately.

1.2. The main tabs in the platform

There are a few main menu items in the platform (in the black ribbon on the left): plan/manage sessions, add/manage athletes, view results, and view results of the Growth Tracker.

A Session in the Hylyght platform is a testing moment. A session could include one or multiple athletes or patients, and could include various tests.

In the tab Athletes you can view, edit, and add athletes to the platform. You need to add athletes before you can add data.

In the tab Results you can compare the test results from athletes within one group. For this option you will need to create 'groups' of athletes.

The tab Growth Tracker is intended for recurring height & weight measurements in adolescent athletes. Find out more on the Growth Tracker page.

On the bottom left, you will also find a tab Help & Support. Use these if you have any questions for which you cannot find the answer in this guide. Finally, under Settings you can change the name of your organisation, add a logo, add users, and set two factor authentication.

1.3 Add extra users

To add more users to your organisation, go to ‘settings’, ‘Users’, and click on ‘+ Add user’. The moment you add this user, he/she will receive an email notification to login on the Hylyght platform. So make sure to inform these users before you add them.

We have two different user roles. Keep in mind that all users have full access to your organization's data and athletes, as well as all underlying sub-organization's data and athletes.

• Manage users (= Account admin)
• Subadmin

Every user has access to all data and can do everything with the athletes in your organization (depending on your subscription): sessions, medical, exercises etc.

An account admin (manage users) has a few extra options via the 'settings' menu:

• Users: add new users, edit, remove, reset passwords
• Your organization: add and edit details (logo, address, name ...)
• Sub-organizations: add, edit and remove sub-organizations (depending on your subscription)
• Benchmark: view, add, edit your your organization's benchmarks
• Test sets: view, add, edit your your organization's test sets

2. Manage athletes / patients

For Hylyght, everyone who moves is an athlete, so your patients will be referred to in the platform as 'athletes'.

Before you can start testing, you need to add athletes to the Hylyght platform and organise them in groups. You can add athletes one by one or import a list from an excel file.

2.1. Add a single athlete

To add a single athlete, go to Athletes⁽¹⁾, click on the athletes⁽²⁾ tab, and on + Create athlete⁽³⁾. Fill in the required information (marked with *) and save. Other information is optional. The athlete will be added to the list.

2.2. Add a list of athletes

To import a list of athletes, click on the 3 dots (= meatballs⁽³⁾) next to + Create athlete and select Import athletes from a spreadsheet⁽⁴⁾.

Download the Excel template, and fill in or copy-paste the information to this file. Do not change the columns of the file! If you are copy-pasting the information from another file, make sure all data is in the correct column and format (e.g. ‘Male’ or ‘Female’ in English only). Add groups to your athletes. We recommend make groups that indicate the season and the team. For example: U13 Season 2025-2026. Add email addresses of athletes or parents as contact information if available (optional).

If you are adding multiple groups in one Excel, you can immediately organise them in the tab ‘groups’. If the group already exists in the platform, the athletes will be added to it. Pay attention that name of the group has to be exactly the same. If the group does not exist in the platform yet, it will be created and the new athletes will be automatically added to it. We recommend to make groups that indicate the season/year and the team/class.

Height of both biological parents is only necessary for the Khamis-Roche method to estimate adult height. It can be added either via this Excel template, or later via a custom test session (see 'Add height of the parents manually').

Hint: If your original Excel file has names and birth dates in a single cell, you can easily separate these into separate columns using the ‘Text to Columns’ function (in the tab ‘data’). Alternatively, assuming that your date is in column A, you can also use the formulae “=DAY(A1)”, “=MONTH(A1)”, and “=YEAR(A1)” in columns B, C, and D. Furthermore, if you have a list with sex in your own language, you can replace all of them by the English term using the ‘replace all’ functionality (ctrl + f and choose 'replace').

Upload the Excel-file, and review the imported information. When you refresh, the athletes will be added. If used, the new groups will also be created according to the Excel-file. Note that you might need to wait a couple of minutes and/or reload the page before all athletes and groups are completely uploaded to the platform. The names of athletes are case sensitive, so if you would add an existing athlete but without capital letters, he/she will be added as a new athlete.

2.3. Organise athletes in groups

Analyses and reports are generated per group. If the athletes were added in bulk by uploading the Excel template, athletes should be assigned to a group already. To create a new group manually : go to the tab ‘Athletes’ ⁽¹⁾, click on ‘Groups’ ⁽²⁾, and select ‘Create group’ ⁽³⁾. Give your new group a name.

Add athletes to the group:

• Go to ‘Athletes’ ⁽¹⁾ & Select the athlete(s) you want to add to a group (checkbox appears when mouse hovers over the blue square next to the athlete’s name), or ‘select all’ ⁽²⁾
• Click on the ‘meatballs’ ⁽³⁾
• Click on ‘Add selected athletes to a group’ ⁽⁴⁾ & Select the required group
• Check in ‘groups’ if the athletes are added to the corresponding group

To move an athlete to another group:

• Go to ‘groups’ and select the group from which you want to move athletes ⁽¹⁾
• Select the athlete(s) in this group that you want to move ⁽²⁾
• Click on ‘move athletes to another group in the meatballs menu ⁽³⁾
• Select the group to which you want to move these athletes

Note: when you remove an athlete from a group, or remove a whole group, these athletes and their data will still be in the platform, just not connected to this group anymore. You can also move an athlete to another group.

2.4. Edit athletes

If you wish to edit the general information of an athlete:

• Select your athlete ⁽¹⁾
• In the right panel, select the tab ‘Global’ ⁽²⁾
• Click on the ‘edit’ icon ⁽³⁾
• You can now add or edit the information of this athlete.

3. Rehab testing

3.1. Add an injury

Unlike other modules, the Rehab module is very individual. Add your athlete (patient) as described above and add the injury before you can start testing. Go to the athlete - medical and 'add injury'. You can add extra details if you want to use these later for statistical or research purposes or just add the basic information.

3.2. Add a screening within the injury

An injury can have one or several pre-defined milestones. For ACL we offer 9 different ones, for Hamstring strain only 1. These are all based on recent scientific research and regularly updated. Of course, this is just the start and you can customize to your own satisfaction, taking into account the available time and equipment.

If there is no pre-defined test template, you can 'choose tests' and start from scratch OR you can create a test template for your organization. For instance, if you work a lot with elbow overuse injuries you will not find a pre-defined template but you can add one. To get an overview of the pre-defined test templates, go to 'settings' - 'test sets' - 'rehab templates':

3.3. Create your own rehab template

Click 'add test set' to add your own rehab template. Choose a name, link it to an injury, save and choose the tests you want to include. For every athlete with this injury, your template will appear in the milestones.

4. Analyse results and share reports

4.1. Detailed reports & comments

When you finish a session, the report is shown. We try to make it clear for athletes, using color-codes and not too many details. For doctors, coaches or other stakeholders, it's useful to add more details. Click the cogwheel and add as many details as you want to the report. Saving a pdf will add all the selected options to the pdf, so you can have a more detailed report or a clean version.

Use the comment section to provide a summary and personal remarks for each athlete. You can choose to include this summary in the PDF report.

4.2. Sharing reports

Athlete accounts

You can give each athlete access to the platform, with their own login and password. Go to 'athletes', make sure there is an email address for each athlete and click 'invite selected athletes to the platform'. You can invite several athletes at once.

Pdf reports

You can also download reports.

• Go to the session page and click on the ‘meatballs’
• Select ‘Download individual report’
• A report will be downloaded, with the choices you made earlier in the cogwheel section.

In case you want to e-mail pdf reports directly to the athlete:

• Click on the ‘meatballs’
• Select ‘Mail individual report’
• A pop-up will appear, click ‘OK’
• You should see a confirmation message.

Note that only the athletes for whom the e-mail address was added to their Hylyght profile will receive an e-mail. To see an overview of who has their email address attached, go to the tab ‘athletes’ and select the group you want to inspect. Athletes with an ‘envelop’ ⁽¹⁾ next to their name have an e-mail address attached, the others do not. To add an e-mail address to an existing profile, go to the tab ‘global’ ⁽²⁾ and click on the ‘pen’ symbol ⁽³⁾. Add the e-mail address and click ‘save’.

5. Create a program

After a rehab screening, a program can be created to target weaknesses. Just choose a start date, a title and the number of weeks you want to program to be active. After this time, the program will still be visible, both to you and to the athlete.

Select the right exercises, drag and drop to change the order of exercises and edit the notes to make it more individual. You can add individual points of attention to the note and/or more info about sets, reps and weights to be used.

Save and the program will be visible for the athletes with a login and password or you can also save the program in pdf and change in a different manner.

Note: you can also create a program for people without testing them, just go to programs. For combinations of exercises you often use, there is the option to create templates. A template can be changed before you make a program for an individual.

6. FAQ

6.1. Which benchmarks will be used?

The platform will use the benchmarks that are related to the injury you added and the phase in rehabilitation (milestone). For instance, there is an overlap in tests between an ACLR Return to run and ACLR Return to sport low load, but different benchmarks will be used. For this reason, it's important to start from the right milestone.

All benchmarks are based on scientific research that has been published or research we did ourselves, with Ghent University and/or with other institutions.

6.2. Can I add my own exercises?

Yes! Go to exercises - exercises and all as many as you want. Make sure to add at least one video and a photo per exercise and use the tags to make sure they show up where you need them. Your exercises are not shared with other customers.

6.3. Can I add extra tests?

No, if you want to use tests that are not in the platform, get in touch and we'll add them for you.

⤶ Back to the Rehab Knowledge Base