Add an unplanned exercise mid-session

Done with the planned queue, ten minutes to spare, and your biceps haven't seen direct work this week. You're not changing the routine for next time, you're adding one exercise today, right now. You tell the agent to queue curls at the end and you keep going.

What the agent needs to hear

Behind your sentence, the agent works backwards to three pieces: the exercise to add, where in the queue, and the target sets and reps. The active session is implicit — mid-flow, « add curls » means here, in this session, today.

Position defaults to the end, where ad-hoc additions usually belong. Targets default to 3 sets at a sensible rep range — moderate for compounds, higher for accessories. Leave both implicit and the agent fills them in.

If you want something specific, name it: « 4 sets of 12 », « as the next exercise », « after rows ». The agent shows a queue card with the new exercise inserted before you confirm.

Position and target defaults

Position has three forms. End of the queue — the default, what « add curls » resolves to. After a named exercise — « after rows ». By ordinal — « as the next exercise ». Pick the form that matches how you’re thinking about the slot.

Targets default to 3 sets at a moderate rep range: 8–12 for compounds, 12–15 for accessories. Override inline. « 4 sets of 12 » sets both. « 3×8 heavy » signals working weight.

The exercise gets matched against your library. Naming it with equipment — « rope tricep extensions », « dumbbell hammer curls » — reduces the disambiguation round. A bare « curls » works too; the agent picks the most likely match and shows it on the card.

Mid-session vs routine-level

This recipe affects only today’s session. The routine template is untouched. Tomorrow’s push day, if you run it again, won’t include curls unless you’ve added them to the template separately.

That’s the deciding question. Doing curls today only, because you have time and the biceps need it → add mid-session. Doing curls every push day going forward → add them to the routine day instead, so they’re queued automatically.

If you find yourself adding the same exercise mid-session three weeks in a row, that’s the signal to promote it to the template. The mid-session add is for one-offs; the routine-level add is for the new normal.

When the agent gets it wrong

Three failure modes show up. The agent put the exercise in the wrong position — at the end when you wanted it next, or next when you wanted it at the end. Correct on the card: « at the end, not as the next exercise ».

The agent matched the wrong exercise — « rope tricep extensions, not the V-bar », « hammer curls, not preacher curls ». Name the equipment or the variant and the agent re-resolves.

The agent treated the add as a routine-template change and asked about future sessions. Push back: « only today’s session, don’t touch the routine ». The change scopes back down to this session and the template stays as it was.

What makes the mid-session add worth using

Three things decide whether adding mid-session beats logging it freeform later: the exercise resolves to a real library entry (a freeform note doesn’t accumulate PR history; a properly added exercise does), the position is right for the work order (an accessory squeezed in between two compound lifts breaks the recovery rhythm; at the end it sits cleanly), and the change stays in the session, not in the template (one curl day is one curl day; adding curls to the routine forever is a different decision). Mid-session additions keep the day honest while the template stays untouched until you decide otherwise.