How Azetta chooses your exercises

The principle

Out of more than 870 exercises, six or eight have to be picked to form a coherent session: the right muscles, in the right order, with your equipment, at your level, without aggravating an injury and without repeating the same movement twice. For each session, Azetta fills a list of slots (a muscle and a type of exercise), then chooses for each slot the exercise with the best score.

The Azetta method

The slots of each session

Each type of session has its list of muscles by priority. A full-body A session, for example, starts with: quads (compound), chest (compound), mid back (compound), abs, hamstrings (compound), shoulders (compound), then biceps, triceps, calves, glutes. The number of slots filled depends on the time available (see the article on building the program).

The filters

An exercise is ruled out if it doesn't match the slot's category or muscle, if it needs equipment you don't have (including a barbell, bench or dip station implied by its name), if it loads an injured area or a muscle you have excluded, or if the same movement is already in the session. Level filters too: a beginner only gets beginner-level exercises, an intermediate everything except expert level, an expert everything.

The score

The equipment order depends on the location: at the gym, barbell, dumbbells, cable, machine, bodyweight, kettlebell, EZ bar; at home, dumbbells, kettlebell, bodyweight, resistance bands, barbell, suspension straps, plates; outdoors, bodyweight, resistance bands, kettlebell, dumbbells, suspension straps. In case of a tie, alphabetical order decides, which makes the result reproducible.

If no exercise passes the filters, the app widens the search in this order: neighbouring muscles, another type of exercise, then one level higher (never up to the advanced level).

The order within the session

Compound exercises first, grouped by pattern (squat, hip hinge, lunge, bridge, horizontal, incline then vertical presses, pulls), then isolation from the lower to the upper body, core work at the end.

Variety, priority and excluded muscles

• Stable: the same exercises every week. Balanced (default): −25 points for an exercise already used during the week. Varied: isolation exercises alternate with a variant on even weeks; the big compound movements never rotate.
• Priority muscles (two at most): the first exercise that works them gets one extra set (6 at most), and with 3 or more sessions, they are worked in at least two sessions.
• Excluded muscles (four at most): no exercise has them as its primary muscle.

Why this choice

• Starting with compound exercises while you are fresh is the usual recommendation on exercise order: they are the ones that demand the most energy and technique.
• A transparent score rather than a random draw gives a program that is stable, explainable and reproducible.
• Keeping the big movements fixed lets you measure your progress on them, while alternating isolation exercises brings variety where it costs the least.

Limits

• The score doesn't know your personal preferences beyond variety and chosen muscles: replace an exercise you don't like.
• The rankings of the reference lists are an editorial choice by Azetta, not scientific data.
• The injury filters rule out exercises by area; they are no substitute for a physiotherapist's advice.

References

1. Simão R, de Salles BF, Figueiredo T, Dias I, Willardson JM. Exercise order in resistance training. Sports Medicine, 2012;42(3):251-265.
2. American College of Sports Medicine. American College of Sports Medicine position stand. Progression models in resistance training for healthy adults. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2009;41(3):687-708.