Why Studio Gay exists.
Studio Gay expands how strength training is designed, coached and experienced.
Strength training, designed differently.
Studio Gay designs strength training programs and coaching systems for individuals, groups and organisations. Its mission is to queer fitness by creating more inclusive, adaptable and enjoyable ways to train—without pretending there is one ideal body, one right way to move or one definition of progress.
Drawing on sport science, sport sociology and lived queer and trans experience, Studio Gay builds strength, mobility, confidence and skill through coaching that is technically strong, deeply human and actually fun.
It is a cold, hard world out there. Too often, we are made to feel insufficient—not big enough, thin enough, buff enough or fit enough. Studio Gay is about celebrating what you have while helping you work towards what you want.
Studio Gay emerged from my desire to make fitness fun—to make it affirming, sexy and cute. However you define those words, I want you to feel them in your body: the one you have now and the one you are working toward. Our bodies are always in transition. Why not enjoy the ride?
I want you to grow without obsessing over outcomes. To challenge yourself without destroying yourself. To explore your body without judging it. Goals can be motivating, but they can also produce pressure and shame. Good coaching makes space for both ambition and the life happening around it.
My focus is strength training, with mobility and flexibility built into the work. We define goals, use progressive overload, work with RIR and adapt programming to the person. But we also talk about confidence, aesthetics, gender affirmation, body awareness and what training is actually meant to add to your life.
And, of course, we gay up your workouts 🍑
How I coach.
These principles guide the work across personal coaching, group classes, online programs and consulting.
Design for inclusion
Build meaningful options into training so different bodies, abilities and levels of experience can participate and progress.
Reinforce before correcting
Point out what is already working, then invite the next adjustment from a place of confidence.
Invite challenge
Encourage people to try more through choice, clear feedback and coach support—not pressure.
Teach, don’t just train
Build the knowledge, skills and confidence people need to understand training and make decisions for themselves.
Design for joy
Good music, humour, encouragement and pleasure help make training something people actually want to return to.
Honour individual goals
Strength, health, aesthetics, confidence and gender affirmation can all be valid reasons to train.
The person behind it.
Sport scientist, coach, consultant and founder of Studio Gay.
Nici’s work combines strength training with a coaching approach shaped by inclusion, queer joy, body autonomy and the belief that good coaching should leave people more capable—not more dependent.
Alongside coaching individuals and groups, Nici works with gyms and wellness spaces to shape training programs, class concepts and coaching systems that are distinctive, practical and possible for other coaches to deliver.
Beyond private coaching.
Studio Gay also exists outside paid personal training and consulting. Nici teaches accessible group classes in Berlin, contributes to queer and trans fitness activism, and offers free workshops with TIN* Fitness through Seitenwechsel e.V.
These spaces are not separate from Studio Gay. They are where many of its ideas are developed, tested and refined—through direct work with people who have often been overlooked or underserved by mainstream fitness.
Queering fitness.
Coaching, programs and consulting for individuals, groups and organisations.