Online fitness coaching for people in Iowa

How Iowa trains, per the CDC's state survey

In 2023, 36.4% of adults in Iowa reported muscle-strengthening activities on 2 or more days a week (BRFSS, 95% CI 35.1 to 37.8). In 2025, 22.9% reported no leisure-time physical activity at all (BRFSS, 95% CI 21.9 to 24.0).

Daily life in Iowa, by the numbers

From the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, published value and margin of error together: about 11.3% of workers who live here work from home (90% margin of error plus or minus 0.2); commuters average 19.8 minutes to work (90% margin of error plus or minus 0.1); the median age is 38.6 years (90% margin of error plus or minus 0.2); 88.9% of households have a broadband subscription (90% margin of error plus or minus 0.2). State figures: your own city may differ.

How coaching works from a distance

Diogo is based in South Florida and coaches online. Your workouts live in the Trainerize app, you weigh in twice a week, you send progress photos every two weeks, and we talk on a weekly call scheduled around your time zone. Between calls, you can message me with questions.

Most people I know do not lift. Is this normal for a first program?

It is the most normal start there is. The state survey puts Iowa among the lower shares of adults lifting two or more days a week on these pages, with a share reporting no activity near the middle, so a lot of adults here have walked, worked and maybe run, and have never had a strength program with progression in it. The first month is two sessions of six movements, weights that feel too easy, and a walk with a floor you can hit on a bad day; the loads start going up in week three. You do not need to know the names of the lifts before the first call. Coaching for beginners is that month with someone reading your numbers.

My commute is twenty minutes. Why do I still never have time?

Because the time is there and the decision is not. Iowa has one of the shorter commutes on these pages and a small share of people working from home, which is an office-and-drive week with the evenings mostly free; what is usually missing is which evenings, what happens in them, and the smallest version for the night the day went sideways. The plan decides those in advance and the weekly call checks whether they held. Two or three sessions, forty minutes each, on named days, is less than most people think they need and more than most people have been doing. Why you keep starting over is the longer answer.

Our internet is not great. Will the coaching work?

Yes, because it needs almost none. Iowa has one of the lower household broadband shares on these pages, and the plan is built for a phone: the workouts sit in an app and work once loaded, the weigh-ins are a number you type, and the weekly call runs on a phone connection; if the video is poor, we talk, and the call is the point. The median age here is near the middle of these pages, and the plan assumes an adult with a job, a family and a gym or a basement, who wants the training to add up. Your first month of online coaching shows what the first weeks look like.

Neighboring states

• Minnesota
• Wisconsin
• Illinois
• Missouri
• Nebraska

Up a level: Online coaching by state · How one-to-one online coaching works · Coaching for beginners · Why you keep starting over · Your first month of online coaching · Apply for coaching