Audit report

0. Intake

What an audit starts from: a training log covering at least four consecutive weeks, plus the constraints you actually train under. No photographs are required.

Body-fat estimate 16%. FFMI is normalised to 178 cm. Protein range is 1.6–2.2 g/kg of bodyweight [5].

1. Bottleneck analysis

A production line runs at the speed of its slowest station. The question an audit answers is not “is this programme good” but which single station is holding the rest of the line back, because that is the only place where added capacity changes the output.

Two stations are running far below the rest. One of them is the constraint:

Both were missed because the total looks healthy. That is the trap: 144 sets a week is not a low-volume programme. The volume is there. It is in the wrong places, and no amount of adding to what is already at 147% will move the constraint.

2. Utilisation profile

Programmed sets are counted the way the research counts them — a direct set scores 1.0, a set where the muscle acts as a synergist scores 0.5 — and measured against the weekly target for this bodyweight, experience level and training age [1].

Hatched bars are over target. Frequency below 2× per week is flagged regardless of whether the weekly total is met [1].

3. Capacity check

Before prescribing anything, the arithmetic has to close. Four sessions at this session length carry roughly 190 counted sets a week. That is the capacity of the shift, and it is not negotiable by wanting more.

Two things follow, and they are the whole reason this report exists:

• The targets fit. 182 wanted against ~190 available. Four sessions can carry a complete, balanced week for this lifter. Nothing here needs a fifth day, and no target has to be sacrificed to reach another.
• So the deficit is not a capacity problem — it is an allocation problem. The programme runs 38 sets below the sum of its targets while simultaneously running five stations over target. It is not that there was no room for rear delts. There was room, and it went to a third chest press.

This is the finding that decides the entire fix list. If capacity were the constraint, the honest advice would be to train a fifth day or accept a prioritised week. It is not, so every fix below is a reallocation, and the first five cost no extra time at all.

The push-to-pull ratio of 1.38 : 1 is the same finding stated a second way. For a lifter whose stated goal is width and rear-shoulder development, that wants to sit at roughly 1 : 1.1 — slightly pull-dominant.

4. Loss sources

Where sets are being spent without a return. This is not about working hard; every set in this log was performed. It is about sets that cost recovery and buy little.

31 of 144 programmed sets — 22% — are returning less than they cost. That is the budget the fixes below are paid for with. No extra training time is required.

5. Fix list

Ordered by effect per unit of effort, not by size of effect. The first three cost nothing but a reallocation; they are what changes the output. Everything below rank 3 is worth doing and would not, on its own, have been worth an audit.

1. Move 6 chest sets to rear delts
   Drop the third pressing variation entirely. Replace with reverse pec-deck and cable rear-delt fly, split across two sessions. Rear delts go from 3 → 9 sets and from 1× to 2× weekly.
   Cost: 0 min · 0 extra sets · Effect: releases the constraint
2. Convert leg extensions to seated leg curls
   Quads are at 108% and hamstrings at 31%. A straight swap of 4 sets moves volume across the joint at no cost. Seated curl loads the hamstring at long length, which is the position that pays [2].
   Cost: 0 min · 0 extra sets · Effect: releases the second constraint
3. Delete front raises, move the volume to side delts
   6 sets off a station at 123%, onto one at 38%. Side delts go 6 → 12 sets. This is the single largest visual change available in the whole log.
   Cost: 0 min · 0 extra sets · Effect: high
4. Move lateral raises off the back of overhead pressing
   Lead one session with them instead, while the delt is fresh [3]. Same sets, same session, different order.
   Cost: 0 min · 0 extra sets · Effect: moderate
5. Halve biceps volume, raise upper back
   18 → 12 sets of curls; the 6 recovered sets go to rows and face-pulls. Biceps still receive fractional volume from every pulling set, so measured biceps volume falls far less than 6.
   Cost: 0 min · 0 extra sets · Effect: moderate
6. Raise calves and glutes to 2× weekly
   Both sit under 50% at one session a week. Frequency first, then volume — this is the last item because it changes appearance least [1].
   Cost: ~6 min / session · +6 sets · Effect: low but cheap

6. What happens next

The report is the first half. The rest of the cycle: a 45-minute call to walk through the findings and adapt them to the kit you actually have, a rebuilt eight-week programme with the fixes applied, one form check, and a re-audit at week four against your logged numbers — the same tables, so the change is measurable rather than felt.

Sources

Every claim above traces to one of these. They are the same five cited in every plan the site produces.

1. Pelland et al. (2025). The Resistance Training Dose Response: Meta-Regressions on Weekly Volume and Frequency. Sports Medicine. 67 studies, n=2058. — weekly volume targets and the 2× frequency floor.
2. Systematic review & meta-analysis (2025). Hypertrophy from partial repetitions at long vs. short muscle length. 8 studies. — why long-length variants are preferred.
3. Nunes et al. (2020). Does exercise order affect resistance training adaptations? A systematic review and meta-analysis. 11 studies, n=268. — exercise ordering.
4. Pre-exhaustion literature (acute EMG studies, mixed findings). — why isolation is separated from a compound that pre-fatigues it.
5. 1.6–2.2 g/kg/day protein for resistance-trained individuals. — the daily protein target.