Meet Andrea · founder + coach
I built the placeI wish I had when I started.
I started strength training at 35 years old. I was 11 months postpartum, still breastfeeding, working full-time in a director role, raising my kids, and feeling completely disconnected from the body I was in.
I knew I needed to make some lifestyle changes. I wanted to feel good in my body again, but just as importantly, I wanted more energy for my kids and something that made me feel strong again.
The funny thing is, I had wanted to lift weights for years. I would buy gym memberships, walk into the gym determined to start, look over at the weight section…and get intimidated. I didn’t know what any of the equipment did. I didn’t know what exercises to choose. I felt like everyone else knew exactly what they were doing and I didn’t belong there. So I would go stand on a treadmill instead. And I never really made progress.
At 35, I finally hired a personal trainer and learned the basics. Once someone showed me how to actually lift weights, everything changed. I fell completely in love with strength training. I became a total gym rat. I wanted to get stronger. I wanted to understand programming. I started learning more about nutrition because I wanted to maximize the work I was putting in. What started as an attempt to change my body gradually became a lifestyle that I genuinely loved.
Three years later, the physical transformation is obvious to me — but that honestly isn’t the part that means the most. Strength training has improved my mental health, my confidence, my patience, and my energy. It has changed the way I show up for my kids and the way I feel moving through everyday life. The benefits have reached far beyond the gym.
And somewhere along the way, I became that friend — the one trying to convince every woman I know to come lift weights with me. That’s how Barbell Sisterhood started.
I hear women say all the time that they don’t necessarily want fitness advice from someone whose life looks nothing like theirs. They want to learn from women who understand what it’s like to work a full-time job, raise children, figure out dinner, school schedules, bath time and bedtime — and somehow still try to carve out a little time for themselves.
I AM THAT WOMAN.
I didn’t start lifting at 19. I didn’t build my life around fitness. I figured this out in my mid-30s while working full-time and raising a family.
And I wanted to create the kind of place I wish I had when I was standing in that commercial gym staring nervously at the weight room.
Barbell Sisterhood is a private, intimate strength-training space inside my home garage gym in Huntington Beach. Small-group sessions are intentionally capped at five women so nobody gets lost in a crowd. Your kids are welcome. You don’t have to know how to lift before you come. You don’t have to already be “in shape.” And you definitely don’t have to feel comfortable walking into a huge commercial gym.
You just have to be willing to start.
My goal is to make strength training more accessible for women with real, busy lives — and to give them a comfortable place to learn what their bodies are capable of. Because I know firsthand how much can change when a woman starts getting strong.
