Andrea Mates is a coach at Starting Strength Austin. Teaching strength training with barbells is only the latest in a long line of subjects she’s taught in the past 20 years. In 2013 when she nearly dropped her then 3-year-old daughter, she realized she wasn’t strong enough for her mom duties. After reading Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training, she taught herself the lifts and became stronger than she ever thought possible. When Starting Strength Austin opened in April 2019, she was recovering from a long illness and joined to be coached back to strength. In October 2020, she became an Apprentice Coach at the gym and completed the Starting Strength Coach credential in November 2021. Andrea has a doctorate in Applied Linguistics from UCLA and bachelor’s degrees in Russian language and Public Policy from Duke.
2 Reviews on “Andrea Mates, Ph.D, SSC”
I’ve been working with Andrea through online coaching for the past 4 months. I had previously run my own Novice Linear Progression. It didn’t last long as I hit different road blocks with my form, my knowledge of how to adjust the programming for my life, and my own limited knowledge of my potential. Andrea has helped me to dramatically improve my form, adapt my programming as I encounter the stress of daily life and advance past the novice level; all the while keeping me motivated to lift. I had high hopes in working with a Starting Strength coach, based on the reputation of the program. Andrea has exceeded all of my expectations.
Should you work with Andrea as a Starting Strength coach? Only if you want to be stronger than you ever thought possible. I have personally PR’ed all of my lifts in 2 months and I’m still adding weight to the bar every week.
I’ve worked with Andrea as my online coach for about a year and highly recommend her! She takes a thoughtful approach to programming which was particularly beneficial for me as we navigated my biggest hurdle: recovery! With a stacked plate at work and home, plus other sports/hobbies, one might expect me to have made very little progress this year under the bar. But with Andrea’s help I was able to make consistent PRs, including hitting then surpassing a very long term goal of mine–that elusive 500lb deadlift! I can now say I’m stronger than I actually ever thought possible and I can also say that there’s no way I could have done this on my own. Andrea offers top tier programming, astute and intuitive technical feedback, a high degree of responsiveness, and flexibility to help me continue to progress despite work travel, various colds, and minor injuries. Can’t recommend her enough!