Online fitness coaching for people in the Columbus area

How the Columbus area trains, per the CDC’s metro survey

In 2023, an estimated 42.0% of adults in the Columbus area reported muscle-strengthening exercises two or more times a week (CDC SMART BRFSS, 95% CI 39.1 to 45.0). In 2024, an estimated 22.4% reported no physical activity or exercise in the past month (CDC SMART BRFSS, 95% CI 19.0 to 25.8). Metro samples are smaller than the state survey’s, so read the range in brackets more than the single number.

Daily life in the Columbus area, by the numbers

From the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, published value and margin of error together: about 18.8% of workers who live here work from home (90% margin of error plus or minus 0.4); commuters average 23.6 minutes to work (90% margin of error plus or minus 0.2); the median age is 36.7 years (90% margin of error plus or minus 0.1); 93.6% of households have a broadband subscription (90% margin of error plus or minus 0.2). Metro-area figures: your own city may differ.

Climate in the Columbus area

At the COLUMBUS PORT COLUMBUS INTL AP station (USW00014821, 8.9 km from Columbus' Census internal point), the 1991–2020 normals are a July high of 85.4 F, a January low of 22 F, 20.7 days a year at or above 90 F, and 41.57 inches of rain a year.

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.

I’m in my twenties or thirties and keep restarting. What’s different here?

One plan, kept long enough to work. The metro’s median age is under thirty-seven, and the usual pattern at that age is not a lack of effort; it is a new program every few weeks and a plan that assumes the week will hold still. Coaching keeps one program in place long enough to progress it, writes it as sessions per week rather than fixed days, and puts someone on the other end of the logbook every week. The survey figure above says a little over a fifth of adults here reported no exercise at all; the plan is built so that a bad week is a short week, not a stop.

How does the plan handle an Ohio winter?

It moves the outdoor half inside and leaves the lifting where it is. The station figures above put average January lows in the low twenties, and the dark evenings matter as much as the cold, so the evening walk is the first thing to go when the days get short. The plan swaps it for an indoor version, a treadmill, a bike, stairs or a longer warm-up, and keeps the strength sessions on the same days all year. Winter is a good season for lifting progress, because there is less competing for the time. When the weather turns, the outdoor work moves back and the strength work keeps going.

Other metro areas

• Indianapolis area
• Kansas City area
• Chicago area

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