I’ve spent the past few weeks reading through last year’s Top 25 Most Inspiring Coaches list while we build out this year’s expanded Top 26 Most Visionary Coaches of 2026, and one story keeps pulling me back. Coach360 named that first list in 2025, and the response told me something I already suspected: people are hungry to celebrate the coaches who changed them. This year the recognition returns, expanded and sharpened into the Top 26 Most Visionary Coaches of 2026, and nominations are open now through August 19.
Before you nominate, it is worth looking at who this honor celebrates. Josefine Holmberg earned her place on last year’s list, and her story is exactly the kind of recognition this list exists to surface. It is also a reminder that somewhere in your own gym or network, there is a coach whose story deserves the same visibility, waiting for someone to put her name forward.
She grew up on a small farm in Sweden, which is a long way in every sense from the Hollywood sets where she would eventually build a career. Her path into fitness did not begin with ambition. It began with a diagnosis.
The Diagnosis That Started Everything
At seventeen, Holmberg was diagnosed with celiac disease. For many teenagers, that would register as a limitation. For her, it became the doorway. She turned to weightlifting to rebuild her strength and her confidence, and in the process she discovered something she would spend the rest of her career trying to give other people. She found out what it feels like to reclaim your own body.
That experience became the foundation of how she coaches. She earned her first certification through Eleiko in Sweden, the beginning of a professional path built on a deeply personal understanding of what strength actually does for a person. It is not only physical. For a young woman who had just been handed a chronic illness, strength was the thing that gave her agency back, and that is a lesson she has carried into every client relationship since.
“After my diagnosis I felt extremely fragile, and my body was so broken down. Weightlifting is what saved me. It built my body back up and it made me feel better mentally too. That feeling is the whole reason I became a personal trainer. I wanted other people to feel the way lifting made me feel, physically and mentally. I am honestly obsessed with that feeling, and I want every client to walk away knowing it from the inside.”
— Josefine Holmberg
This is exactly the kind of origin the recognition is meant to surface. Holmberg’s expertise is not borrowed from a textbook. It was earned in her own body first.
From a Swedish Farm to Hollywood Sets
In 2015, Holmberg made a bold move to Los Angeles. While studying for her fitness instruction certificate through UCLA Extension, she connected with a fellow Swedish trainer, and that single relationship changed the trajectory of her career.
What followed reads like a highlight reel. She trained elite clients including music producers and actors, among them Ben Affleck, Sarah Paulson, and Max Martin. She served as the trainer for Mackenzie Davis during the filming of Terminator: Dark Fate, work that put her on set alongside Gabriel Luna and in the orbit of industry icons like Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger. In one of the most competitive fitness markets in the world, she built a reputation on two things at once: the technical skill to design project-based transformations for demanding roles, and the relational ability to build genuine trust with high-profile clients who could hire anyone.
That combination is worth naming because it is what actually distinguishes a great coach from a merely qualified one. Plenty of trainers understand programming. Far fewer can pair that expertise with the kind of personal attention that makes a client feel known rather than processed. Holmberg’s whole Hollywood career was built on doing both, for clients whose schedules, bodies, and goals changed with every role.
Pioneering What Comes Next
The part of Holmberg’s story that most clearly earned her a place on last year’s list is what she did after she had already made it.
Rather than settling into the celebrity-trainer identity she had built, she relocated to Florida and transitioned into remote coaching. She recognized that her expertise did not have to be bound to a single zip code, and she rebuilt her model to maintain her long-term client relationships while extending her reach beyond any geographic limit. She saw where the industry was heading and moved toward it deliberately, rather than waiting to be pushed.
Her advice to other coaches considering the same move reflects how thoughtfully she made it. She stresses preparation, urging trainers to genuinely understand the demands of online training before they attempt to switch. And she is pointed about authenticity, encouraging coaches to reject the prescribed formulas for social media content and instead find their own voice, sharing what feels natural and aligned with their actual business rather than performing someone else’s playbook.
“The decision came down to reach. In person, I could help the clients who could physically get to me, and I loved that work, but I kept thinking about all the women I could never reach that way. Women in other cities, other countries, women who would never walk into a Hollywood gym. Going remote was how I could take everything I had learned and put it in front of women around the world. What some coaches miss is that great coaching was never about being in the room. It is about being genuinely invested in the person.”
— Josefine Holmberg, on leaving in-person celebrity training for remote coaching
Why Her Story Is Your Reminder to Nominate
Look closely at Holmberg’s path, and you see a woman who kept turning constraints into direction. A celiac diagnosis became the reason she found strength training. A move across the world with no guarantees became a Hollywood career. A comfortable identity became something she was willing to leave in order to build what came next. Behind the visible chapters there is another one she has spoken about openly: a long and difficult recovery from Lyme disease that required her to advocate for herself even with well-meaning doctors before she got a diagnosis, and a multi-year road back to the sport she loves.
That thread, the self-advocacy, the refusal to accept a ceiling, the willingness to rebuild, is what so many women in this industry will recognize in themselves. It is what last year’s Most Inspiring honor was created to celebrate, and it is what this year’s Top 26 Most Visionary Coaches will celebrate again.
“It meant so much to me and was so unexpected. When you build an unconventional path, you spend a lot of time wondering if anyone sees the work, so being named alongside coaches I admire was really special and it gave me a push at exactly the right moment. What I hope it signals to other women is that there is no one right way to build this career. And to the coach standing where I once stood, on a farm or in a small gym with a big dream that feels crazy: believe in yourself and go after it. My dream looked impossible from where I started too. It was not.”
— Josefine Holmberg, one year on from being named a 2025 Most Inspiring Coach
Which brings it back to you. Josefine Holmberg made last year’s list because her work deserved to be seen. This year’s list is open now, and the coaches who belong on it are already out there doing the quiet, unglamorous, life-changing work that rarely gets acknowledged. The best of them are often the last people to put themselves forward, which means the recognition depends on someone else deciding their work should be visible. That someone can be you.
Nominations for the 2026 Top 26 Most Visionary Coaches close on August 19. If Josefine’s story brought someone to mind, take two minutes and nominate them.
Related: Top 26 Most Visionary Coaches — Nominations Now Open
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Josefine Holmberg?
Josefine Holmberg is a fitness coach and one of Coach360’s 2025 Top 25 Most Inspiring Coaches. Originally from a small farm in Sweden, she turned to weightlifting after being diagnosed with celiac disease at seventeen, then earned her first certification through Eleiko. After moving to Los Angeles in 2015, she built a career training high-profile clients including Ben Affleck, Sarah Paulson, Max Martin, and Mackenzie Davis, whom she trained for Terminator: Dark Fate. She has since relocated to Florida and transitioned to remote coaching, extending her work beyond geographic limits while maintaining her long-term client relationships.
What was the Coach360 Top 25 Most Inspiring Coaches list?
The Top 25 Most Inspiring Coaches was Coach360’s 2025 recognition of fitness professionals whose work and stories exemplified the impact coaches have on their clients and the industry. Josefine Holmberg was among those honored. In 2026 the recognition returns as the Top 26 Most Visionary Coaches, expanding the list and sharpening the criteria toward the coaches building the models, methods, and communities shaping the next era of the profession.
How can I nominate a coach for the 2026 Top 26?
Nominations for the Top 26 Most Visionary Coaches of 2026 are open now through August 19, and anyone can nominate, including clients, colleagues, employers, and fellow coaches. You can nominate a coach you train with, work alongside, or admire from a distance, and the process takes only a couple of minutes. Because many of the best coaches never put themselves forward, nominations from others are often how deserving professionals get the recognition they have earned. The full Top 26 report will be released September 7, free to the public.
What made Josefine Holmberg an inspiring coach?
Holmberg’s story reflects resilience and a refusal to accept limitations. She transformed a celiac diagnosis into a career in strength training, built a Hollywood coaching reputation from an unproven cross-continental move, and then left the security of the celebrity-trainer model to pioneer a remote coaching practice. Her openness about recovering from Lyme disease and advocating for her own health, along with her emphasis on authenticity over formula, reflects the kind of determination and forward thinking that the Most Inspiring recognition was created to honor.
Jessica H. Maurer writes on coaching careers and the Coach360 Top 26 Most Visionary Coaches series for Coach360News.
About Jessica H. Maurer
Jessica is a recognized fitness business consultant and strategist focusing on transforming businesses from overwhelmed to organized. Her international presentations, workshops, certifications, and consultations underscore her commitment to helping fitness professionals and businesses realize their full potential. When Jessica takes the stage, she’s sharing fresh ideas and inspiration that spark positive change. Jessica’s international presentations and consultations are about growth, career transformation, overall wellness, and making fitness a joyful journey. Her expertise spans education, program and instructor development, and brand evolution, making her a key player in elevating the industry. Jessica also played a pivotal role in developing the Mental Well-being Association’s certification for Fitness Professionals., always striving to bring a holistic approach to wellness that’s as uplifting as it is effective.
Jessica has presented at prestigious events like IDEA World, Fitnessfest ACSM Health & Fitness Summit, SCW Mania, AsiaFit, and more. She has worked with brands such as FIT4MOM, SFR, BOSU, Lebert Fitness, Savvier Fitness, SCW Fitness, FitSteps, canfitpro, IDEA, and VIBES music. She also has written content for the IDEA Fitness Journal, canfitpro Magazine, Mental Well-being Association, FIT4MOM, Motherly, and more.
