Build a routine from scratch

New training block coming. You know the shape — 4 days, push-pull-legs-upper, focus on barbell lifts plus some accessories. Instead of duplicating an old routine and rewiring it, you sketch the new one with the agent in one or two sentences and let it stand up the structure.

What the agent needs to hear

Behind your sentence, the agent works backwards to four pieces: the routine name, the split shape (« 4-day PPL », « upper-lower », « full body 3x »), the focus (« barbell », « hypertrophy », « strength »), and the day-to-day structure if you want it explicit. Naming is loose — « PPL v2 », « spring block » both work.

The split shape and the focus drive the agent’s default exercise picks. If those defaults aren’t right, override each day’s queue in the same breath: « push day anchored on incline bench, not flat ». Name the week explicitly — « Monday push, Tuesday pull, Thursday legs, Friday upper » — when you want rest days on specific weekdays.

Defaults the agent fills in

Three axes default unless you say otherwise. Rest days map to your typical pattern — a 4-day PPL+upper assumes three rest days a week, usually Wed/Sat/Sun. Override with « rest Monday and Thursday » when your week sits differently.

Exercise selection comes from the focus tag. Barbell-focused picks compound lifts as anchors — bench, OHP, squat, deadlift — and fills accessories around them. Hypertrophy-focused biases higher-volume isolations and machine work. Strength-focused weights the queue toward low-rep compounds with longer rest. Each day gets four to six exercises by default; say « heavy day, three only » to flex.

Set/rep targets default to a sensible range per category — compounds at 3×5–8, isolations at 3×10–12. Override in the same sentence: « 5×5 on the compounds, 4×10 on accessories » resets target structure across the board.

What the routine becomes

A routine is a template, not active state. Creating it doesn’t change tomorrow’s session or touch progression. It sits in your library until you activate it.

Once active, the routine drives the daily session queue (the day’s lift list pulls from whichever day of the template you’re on), feeds the progression plan (working weights climb week-over-week from the targets you set), and anchors adherence reads. Past sessions stay tagged to whichever routine was active then — the new template doesn’t rewrite history.

Editing later — adding an exercise, swapping a lift, reordering days — changes the template forward from that edit. It doesn’t retro-apply. Sketch it the way you’ll actually train.

When the agent gets it wrong

Three failure modes worth catching. Split shape misread — you said 4-day PPL+upper, the agent created a 3-day PPL. Name the missing day: « four days — push, pull, legs, upper. Add the upper day ». Exercise picks don’t fit — barbell-focused but the agent queued dumbbell variants. Name the equipment: « use the barbell for bench and OHP ».

Set/rep targets don’t match the block goal — you wanted strength but the defaults read hypertrophy. Name the intent: « strength block, 5×5 on compounds ». Each fix is a single sentence; the agent re-renders.

What makes the routine worth keeping

Three things decide whether this new routine reads cleanly when you activate it: the split shape matches your real week (a 4-day routine on a 5-day-available week leaves room for cardio; a 5-day routine on a 4-day-available week breaks immediately), exercise selection matches your equipment and movement patterns (a routine with hack squats won’t work in a gym without one; a routine with no deadlift variant doesn’t match a strength-block intent), and targets are realistic for the goal (strength and hypertrophy block targets are different shapes, not interchangeable). Activate when the preview looks right — the routine becomes the spine of the next block.