Online coaching
Online fitness coaching for women who want to get stronger: the same kind of strength training the research tests in men and women, written around the equipment you have and the week you actually live, with a coach checking in.
This is one part of how coaching with me works. New to lifting? Coaching for beginners covers the first weeks. No gym? A dumbbell plan for home.
Fit
What the research says
A lot of fitness advice quietly assumes women need a different, gentler kind of training. The studies that compare the two don’t show that.
A 2020 meta-analysis pooled studies where men and women followed the same lifting protocol. For muscle size there was no significant difference between them, and for lower-body strength there was none either.1 It covered young to middle-aged adults, so that is the group it speaks for.
The same analysis found women’s relative upper-body strength gains were larger than men’s. Its authors say it is possible that untrained women have a higher capacity to build upper-body strength, and that more research is needed to know why.1 Pushing and pulling movements belong in your plan.
The World Health Organization recommends that adults do muscle-strengthening activity at moderate or greater intensity, involving all the major muscle groups, on two or more days a week.3 The American College of Sports Medicine’s 2026 position stand adds that even minimal doses of lifting bring real strength gains.2 (Why two or three days is a real program.)
What about getting bulky? This research measured muscle growth, not looks: on the same program, women’s growth relative to where they started was not significantly different from men’s.1 It does not say women gain muscle faster than men. If your progress is faster or slower than you want, you tell me on the weekly call and we change the plan.
How it runs
The coaching is the same whoever you are. What changes is the plan, because it starts from your equipment, your schedule and your goal.
Every session is in the Trainerize app: the exercises, the order, the sets. With three days a week I usually start people on full body, and the plan fits the equipment you actually have.
Weigh-ins twice a week, progress photos every two weeks, a weekly call, and messages between calls when something comes up.
On a busy week I cut exercises before I cut effort: fewer movements, same intent. (How that works.) Progress comes from adding a little over time. (That’s progressive overload.)
Where it starts
Apply and tell me where you are: what equipment you have, what you’ve tried, what you want your training to give you. The first conversation is mostly questions, and none of them is a test.
If something hurts or a doctor is involved, that comes first; I’m a fitness coach, not a doctor.
Apply, tell me where you are, and we’ll talk about what you need.
Get stronger. Know why it’s working.
Apply for coachingQuestions
Short answers. The rest is on the main questions page.
The research I rely on is about how much muscle grows, not how a body looks, so it can’t tell you what yours will look like. What it found, in a 2020 meta-analysis of studies where men and women followed the same program, is no significant difference between them in muscle growth.1
Yes. Tell me what you have and the plan is written around it, whether that’s a pair of dumbbells in the living room or a full gym. Your sessions are in the Trainerize app, with the exercises and their order written out before you start. (A dumbbell plan for home.)
The World Health Organization asks adults for muscle-strengthening activity on at least two days a week.3 When someone has three days, I usually start them on full-body sessions, and when two is what the week allows, two is still a real start. (How often to train.)
Yes. Say so when you apply. I teach the technique as we go: what each lift is for and what it should feel like. If you’d rather have someone beside you for the first sessions, a few sessions with a trainer at your gym make a good start, and online coaching can follow. (The first four weeks of lifting.)
Your workouts sit in the Trainerize app. You weigh in twice a week and send progress photos every other week. We talk on a weekly call, with messages in between. If a week gets crowded, I trim the exercises rather than the effort. (Coaching for a busy week.)
Next
Tell me where you are and what equipment you have. We’ll build a plan around your week, and go from there.
Prefer to message me directly? DM TRANSFORM on Instagram @diogo.camera
Prefer a form? Fill out the full application (opens Google Forms)
No pressure to commit. Just an honest conversation about where you are and where you want to go.
