Tutorial: Compare exercises

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to retrieve and view exercise logs to see which activities helped reduce pain for a user. By comparing results, users can focus on what works and avoid what doesn’t, taking control of their healing journey.

Expect this tutorial to take about 10 minutes to complete.

Before you start

Make sure you’ve completed the Getting Started guide on the development system you’ll use for the tutorial.

View exercise history

Viewing exercise history requires using the GET method to retrieve user exercise logs for a specific user. By reviewing the logs, you can see the pain levels before and after each exercise.

This example retrieves all exercise logs for Sarah Johnson, user ID 1.

Make sure your local service is running, or start it by using this command in the terminal:

 cd <your-github-workspace>/SciaticaSisters-API/api
 json-server -w sciatica-sisters-db-source.json

Postman request

Open Postman and create a new request:
1. Click New > HTTP or the + icon in the header.
2. Set the request method to GET using the corresponding dropdown menu.
3. In the request URL field, enter:
```
{base_url}/userExerciseLogs
```
Filter by user ID:
1. Click the Params tab below the URL field.
2. Add a query parameter:
  - Key: userId
  - Value: 1
The query parameter filters the results by appending ?userId=1 to the URL. This returns only exercise logs for Sarah Johnson.
Click Send to make the request.

The system returns all exercise logs for Sarah Johnson. Review each log to see the painBefore and painAfter values, along with the exercise notes and whether it’s effective.

 [
   {
     "id": 1,
     "userId": 1,
     "exerciseType": "stretch",
     "exerciseName": "Piriformis Stretch",
     "date": "2025-10-24",
     "painBefore": 7,
     "painAfter": 5,
     "effective": true,
     "notes": "Felt immediate relief in glute area"
   },
   {
     "id": 2,
     "userId": 1,
     "exerciseType": "strengthening",
     "exerciseName": "Glute Bridges",
     "date": "2025-10-26",
     "painBefore": 6,
     "painAfter": 6,
     "effective": false,
     "notes": "No significant change, might need to increase repetitions. Performed 3 sets of 8 reps."
   }
 ]

cURL request

Open your terminal and run this command:

curl -X GET "{base_url}/userExerciseLogs?userId=1"

The system returns all exercise logs for Sarah Johnson. Review each log to see the painBefore and painAfter values, along with the exercise notes and whether it’s effective.

 [
   {
     "id": 1,
     "userId": 1,
     "exerciseType": "stretch",
     "exerciseName": "Piriformis Stretch",
     "date": "2025-10-24",
     "painBefore": 7,
     "painAfter": 5,
     "effective": true,
     "notes": "Felt immediate relief in glute area"
   },
   {
     "id": 2,
     "userId": 1,
     "exerciseType": "strengthening",
     "exerciseName": "Glute Bridges",
     "date": "2025-10-26",
     "painBefore": 6,
     "painAfter": 6,
     "effective": false,
     "notes": "No significant change, might need to increase repetitions. Performed 3 sets of 8 reps."
   }
 ]

Review the results

Looking at the exercise logs, you can see:

Piriformis Stretch: Pain went from 7 to 5, marked as effective
Glute Bridges: Pain stayed at 6, marked as not effective

The painBefore and painAfter fields show how pain levels changed with each exercise. The effective field indicates whether the user felt the exercise helped. The notes field provides more context about the experience.

Filter by exercise type

You can also view only stretches or only strengthening exercises:

Postman filtering example

In the same Postman request, add a second query parameter:
1. Click the Params tab.
2. Add another parameter:
  - Key: exerciseType
  - Value: stretch
3. Click Send.
This returns only stretch exercises for Sarah. You can change the value to strengthening to see strengthening exercises instead.

cURL filtering example

Run this command with both query parameters:

curl -X GET "{base_url}/userExerciseLogs?userId=1&exerciseType=stretch"

This returns only stretch exercises for Sarah. You can change the value to strengthening to see strengthening exercises instead.

Common errors and troubleshooting

Empty array returned

If you receive an empty array [], the user may not have any exercise logs yet. Create some logs first using the POST method, or check that you’re using the correct user ID.

Query parameters not filtering results

Make sure your query parameters use the correct syntax with ?userId=1, which is a question mark before the first parameter, and &exerciseType=stretch, which is an ampersand before the second parameter.

Can’t retrieve specific exercise log

If you’re trying to get a single log by ID and receive an error, check the log ID exists by first calling GET on all logs without filters.

What you learned

After completing this tutorial, you now know how to retrieve and view exercise logs to see pain levels before and after each activity. This helps users identify which exercises are working well for them.

Next steps

Log your first activity to start tracking exercises.
Update a user’s pain level when pain changes.
Delete an exercise to remove ineffective activities.

Get exercise log by ID
Put exercise log by ID

Security note

In a production environment, this operation would require proper authentication to ensure only authorized users can change patient data. See Authentication for details.