Between those early gym fumbles and where I am now, there's a longer story that shaped how I coach. This is that version.
I went to UC Berkeley. I studied electrical engineering and computer science, and because a body doesn't want to only sit at a desk, I also studied theater. Two parts of me held together: the one that loves building systems, and the one that loves being fully in a body, present, expressive, a little bit brave. I stayed on for my masters in Computer Science and kept building.
During my masters I founded a non-profit to teach women coding. I ran it in the margins of thesis deadlines and problem sets because it mattered. After graduation, I kept it going while working as a software engineer. I've spent years building for women in technology, and the more I did that work, the more I saw how much women get left out of almost every system built around them. Fitness turned out to be another one of those systems.
Quietly, in the background of all of that, I kept training. I kept learning. Friends and family would ask me how to start. I'd put together little plans for them. A pregnant cousin who needed safe movement. A girlfriend prepping for her wedding. A colleague whose lower back had given up on her after years of sitting. I loved it. I didn't yet know it would become my work.
Strength training got me through Vancouver's rainy, cloudy winters. The grey, the short days, the pull to stay in bed. It kept me showing up for myself, and that shapes how I coach now.
Then someone close to me had a stroke.
Recovery is the word people use, but it was bigger than that. It was months of learning how to get them moving again, how to help them eat in a way that gave them back strength, how to help them feel like themselves. I couldn't improvise through that. I needed to actually know what I was doing. That's when I went and earned my National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) personal training certification. Not as a side hobby. As the thing that would let me help someone I love come back to their life.
It's worth saying what a personal trainer actually is, because the title gets diluted by the internet. A certified personal trainer (I hold NASM, one of the industry's most rigorous credentials) is someone trained to design safe, progressive programs, teach movement with real cues, and coach you through the behavior change that makes any program actually work. That includes functional anatomy, corrective exercise for posture and old injuries, progressive overload, nutrition guidance within scope, and special populations like postpartum, perimenopause, and older adults. I work alongside the medical and allied health professionals in your life, not instead of them. Doctors, physiotherapists, and registered dieticians each bring specialized expertise I deeply respect. My role is different. I'm the coach who sits in the middle of your real life and builds a plan that holds up on a Wednesday evening after a long day.
For the past years, I've supported that person through their recovery and helped many other women in my life get stronger. Friends, family, women at different life stages and in different bodies. It feels like my life's vision. That's why I'm expanding it now, to help women around the world.
Guma is that training applied to a product. Built for women who have spent long enough being told they shouldn't lift heavy, or that their cycle is a problem, or that strength is someone else's domain. None of that is true. You were built to be strong. I would love to help you build it.
Gloria.