About Not So Typical Fitness & Neurodivergent PT Rhiannon Cooper

Who is Rhiannon Cooper?

Rhiannon Cooper is a CIMSPA-registered personal trainer, TEDx speaker, competitive strongwoman, and the founder of Not So Typical Fitness, an online, neuroinclusive and weight-neutral fitness business.

Diagnosed autistic and ADHD at 30, she coaches neurodivergent and anxious adults online. Featured in The Guardian, The Sun, ITV, BBC Radio WM, FitPro, Neurodiverse Sport, Wolverhampton City Radio and Joe Fazer's YouTube channel.

Rhiannon is a woman with pink hair, glasses, and tattoos wearing a pink t-shirt and animal print shorts is stretching with resistance bands in a gym.
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    Wolverhampton City Radio

  • Logo for Neurodiverse Sport with purple background and white text reading 'NDS Neurodiverse Sport'.

    Neurodiverse Sport

  • Profile picture of Joe Fazer, a shirtless man with short hair, in a social media profile.

    Joe Fazer YouTube

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    The Sun

  • ITV logo with the letters 'itv' in lowercase, each in a different color: blue, green, pink, and orange.

    ITV Central

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    TEDx Wolverhampton

  • FitPro Logo

    FitPro

  • The Guardian Logo

    The Guardian

  • BBC Radio WM logo

    BBC Radio WM

I spent years thinking I was broken.

Too sensitive for the gym. Too inconsistent to stick to a plan. Too much for spaces that were never built for me. I've sat in the gym car park in tears, unable to make myself walk through the doors.

When I was diagnosed as autistic and ADHD at 30, it wasn't a crisis; it was an explanation. Suddenly I understood why gyms felt overwhelming, why every "simple" workout plan fell apart, and why I'd been failing at something that seemed effortless for everyone else.

I wasn't failing. The system was.

And if you're reading this, there's a good chance it's been failing you too.

I've lost over 7 stone. I've also gained some back.

I'm not going to pretend otherwise, because that's not how real life works; especially not with a neurodivergent brain navigating burnout, mental health, and a world that doesn't always make space for us.

For me, getting healthier was never really about weight. I wanted to feel better, move more, and stop dreading my own body. Weight loss happened, but it was a side effect, not the goal. What I found instead was something the fitness industry rarely talks about: that progress isn't linear, setbacks aren't failure, and sustainable change only happens when you stop fighting your brain and start working with it.

Rhiannon is a person with pink hair holding a pair of pink 4 kg dumbbells, smiling, wearing a pink shirt, with a tattoo on their arm, standing in front of a blurred background of vertical stripes in a gym.

I became a PT because I needed a coach like me, and one didn't exist.

After my diagnosis, I started to see a pattern. So many of us had been masking our way through group classes, white-knuckling through sensory overwhelm, and blaming ourselves when we couldn't ‘get it’ or follow routines that were never designed for us.

I trained as a personal trainer to build the space I wish I'd had. One where you don't have to pretend to be someone you're not just to improve your health. One built around how you actually think, feel, and move; not how fitness culture expects you to. That means sensory-aware training, executive function support, flexible scheduling, and a coach who genuinely gets it - because I do and because I live it.

I'm CIMSPA-registered in personal training and gym instruction, with a nutrition qualification and more in progress. My professional training is grounded in lived experience, not just theory.

Today, all of my coaching is online. That means you can train in your own space, on your own terms, with sensory-aware support wherever you are.

Rhiannon is a smiling woman with glasses, brown hair, and workout top against a pink background.

You Don't Need To Be Smaller To Be Worthy

That's the title of my TEDx talk, and it's the belief everything I do is built on.

I've been very large. I've needed seat belt extenders on planes. I've been too heavy for water slides and too big for standard school and work uniforms. I've chafed just by walking and split seams without even bending over.

I'm still bigger than most people expect a personal trainer to be, and that's exactly why I do this. Because you can look like me and be a personal trainer. You can look like me and show up. You can look like me and take up space.

In July 2026 I took the TEDxWolverhampton stage as part of the Mind, Machine, Meaning event to talk about how we're taught to shrink ourselves; physically, emotionally, socially, in order to feel accepted. Drawing on my experience as an autistic ADHDer, a plus-size personal trainer, and a competitive strongwoman, I challenged a fitness culture that ties health and worth to weight loss, appearance, and constant self-correction.

Real wellbeing comes from something else entirely: strength, enjoyment, alignment, and what our bodies can actually do. Refusing to become quieter, smaller, or more manageable isn't selfish. It's a powerful act of change; and when you do it, you give the people watching permission to do the same.

Watch the talk: You Don't Need to Be Smaller to Be Worthy - TEDxWolverhampton

Rhiannon has bright pink hair, wearing glasses and a colourful dress in orange, yellow, and pink, speaking on stage at a TEDx event. She is gesturing with her hands, and a screen with the text '@TEDxWolves' is in the background.

Beyond The Gym

I'm a competitive strongwoman; proof that strength and capability exist at every size, and that strength sports belong to everyone, not just the bodies the industry expects.

I'm also a speaker and podcast host. I run a free community, create resources used by clients and personal trainers across the UK, and consult on event accessibility. My work has been featured in The Guardian, The Sun's Fabulous Magazine, ITV, FitPro and Neurodiverse Sport, and reached a much wider audience when fitness creator Joe Fazer featured me in a viral video asking whether a fat PT could effectively train him.

Rhiannon Cooper at a Glance

Rhiannon Cooper is a woman with pink hair and glasses in a gym, smiling, lifting a pink and black strongman log from Mirafit on drop pads in the gym.

Not So Typical Fitness Works With You

You were never the problem. The programme design was.

This isn't about finding what's "wrong" and correcting it. It's about building on what's already there; your focus, your pattern recognition, your ability to hyperfocus when something actually clicks. I understand sensory needs from the inside, I work with executive function rather than against it, and I measure success by how you feel and what you can do, not by a number on a scale. Life is so much more than what you weigh or what you've eaten this week.

Not So Typical Fitness exists because fitness should belong to every body; and because the people who need it most have been failed the hardest. If that's been you, you're in the right place.

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This is bigger than personal training.

Not So Typical Fitness exists because one coach can only reach so many people, and the need is enormous. Alongside online coaching, I run a free community, host the Not So Typical Fitness Podcast, and create resources used by clients and personal trainers across the UK. If you're a neurodivergent personal trainer who wants to build your business and work more confidently, there's a space for you here too.

Press & Speaker Bio For Media, Events & Podcasts

Rhiannon’s Short Bio

Rhiannon Cooper is a CIMSPA-registered personal trainer, TEDx speaker and competitive strongwoman. Autistic and ADHD herself, she founded Not So Typical Fitness to make fitness work for neurodivergent and anxious adults, and coaches clients online. Her work has been featured in The Guardian, ITV and FitPro.

Rhiannon’s Full Bio

Rhiannon Cooper is a CIMSPA-registered personal trainer, TEDx speaker and competitive strongwoman, and the founder of Not So Typical Fitness, an online, neuroinclusive and weight-neutral fitness business.

Diagnosed autistic and ADHD at 30, Rhiannon trained as a personal trainer to create the kind of support she couldn't find for herself. She now coaches neurodivergent and anxious adults online, building strength programmes around sensory needs, executive function and energy levels rather than willpower. She also created the Sensory-Safe Strength System, an 8-week programme for people with gym anxiety.

In 2026, Rhiannon spoke at TEDxWolverhampton with her talk You Don't Need to Be Smaller to Be Worthy, challenging a fitness culture that ties health and worth to weight loss. Her work has been featured in The Guardian, The Sun's Fabulous Magazine, ITV, FitPro and Neurodiverse Sport. She hosts the Not So Typical Fitness Podcast, runs a free community for neurodivergent people and personal trainers, and consults on accessible events.

For media and speaking enquiries: rhiannon@notsotypicalfitness.co.uk