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Coaching

Coaching is the product

The equipment here is good and completely unremarkable. What you are paying for is a coach who writes your programme, watches you execute it, and changes it when the evidence says to.

How coaching actually works here

Every session on the timetable marked coached has a coach on the floor for its entire duration, with a hard cap of six people in group sessions and twelve on open-floor coached hours. They are not supervising. They are watching sets, calling load changes and correcting execution.

You train from a written programme. It lives in a shared document you can read at any time, and it records the load and reps you actually did rather than what was planned. Every four weeks your coach reviews it properly and writes the next block.

If you miss three weeks, nobody sends you a guilt-trip email. Your coach adjusts the plan for where you are when you come back, which is usually a step down and then a quicker climb.

One-to-one coaching

Private sessions run for fifty minutes and are used for three things: teaching a lift properly from scratch, working through something the group setting cannot accommodate, and competition preparation. They are included fortnightly on the Coached + 1:1 tier and can be bought individually at £48 by any member.

We do not sell 1:1 blocks to people who do not need them. If two sessions will fix your setup, we will sell you two sessions.

Small-group coaching

Foundations, Rebuild and Hybrid all run as small groups of six. The size is not a marketing number — it is the largest group in which one coach can genuinely watch every set. Groups stay together for a whole block, which matters more than people expect. Turning up is easier when five other people notice you did not.

Watching, not counting

A coach standing behind a heavy set is not there to shout. They are there to call the load, stop the set at the right rep, and catch the technical fault that would otherwise become a three-week problem.

Members are taught to spot properly in their first block, because the person next to you is part of how this room works.

Watching, not counting

The unglamorous majority

Most conditioning work here is done at a pace you could hold a conversation through, on a rower or a bike, for longer than feels impressive. It is the least photogenic thing we do and it is the part that builds the engine.

Coaches will regularly tell you to slow down. It is the single most common instruction given on the conditioning floor.

The unglamorous majority

Your coaches

03 coaches

Everyone on the floor is a full-time employee here, qualified, insured and continuously assessed. None of the coaching is subcontracted.

Nadia Osei

Nadia Osei

Head coach · Founder

Nadia opened Ash to Armor in 2019 after eleven years coaching in commercial gyms and getting steadily more frustrated with what happened to people who did not already look like they belonged there.

BSc Sport & Exercise Science. UKSCA accredited. She writes the Strength and Rebuild programmes and takes most of the intro sessions herself.

Tomás Bergin

Tomás Bergin

Strength coach

Tomás has been competing in and coaching powerlifting for the better part of two decades, and is the person to talk to if your deadlift has stopped moving.

Level 4 Strength & Conditioning. He runs the Saturday sessions and coaches most of the members who compete.

Priya Raman

Priya Raman

Conditioning & Hybrid coach

Priya came to coaching from rowing and brought the aerobic training culture with her, which is why our conditioning programme looks nothing like a bootcamp.

Level 3 Personal Trainer, Level 4 Exercise Referral, British Rowing coaching qualification. She leads Hybrid 55+ and all conditioning classes.

Qualifications and standards we hold to

  1. All coaches hold a minimum Level 3 Personal Trainer qualification
  2. Head coach and strength coach are UKSCA accredited or Level 4 equivalent
  3. Current first aid at work certification for every member of floor staff
  4. Full professional indemnity and public liability insurance
  5. DBS checked — we coach under-18s in supervised family sessions
  6. Annual CPD requirement, and internal coaching reviews every quarter

Working with your clinician

Where you are under the care of a physiotherapist, consultant or GP, we would rather work with them than around them. With your written permission we will share your programme, ask specific questions and adjust to their guidance.

Before you startIf you are coming back from an injury, an illness, surgery or a long spell out, clear training with your doctor or physiotherapist first. We coach movement and load — we are not medical practitioners, and we will happily work alongside whoever is treating you.

Meet a coach before you pay one.

The free intro session is with the coach who would actually be coaching you. Bring your questions and any clinical advice you have been given.