Meet Your Coach
Robert Santana is a PhD, a Registered Dietitian, and a Starting Strength Coach with two decades in the gym. He'll teach you how to build the body you want using the fewest, oldest, most boring tools in the industry — because those are the ones that work.
Why we love him
PhD, Registered Dietitian, and Starting Strength Coach. Two decades getting people stronger under the bar — and squared away on the plate.
Pricing and program details are shared inside the Program Guide.
For most of those twenty years, Robert coached serious male lifters — powerlifters, strengthlifters, guys chasing their first 315-pound squat. He loved the work. He still does.
But somewhere along the way, the referrals started shifting. Women — sent by other women, or by trainers who’d run out of answers — began showing up with goals that sounded different. They wanted to look leaner. Feel stronger. Build the body they’d been quietly chasing for years, without having to spend their lives in a gym to get it.
Women weren’t looking for something easier. They were looking for something that actually worked. They came in after trying everything else — cardio-heavy plans, random programming, and advice that never quite translated into results.
They didn’t need a different method. They needed the same method — same five lifts, same progressive overload, same protein targets — pointed at a different outcome. Aesthetic results were never a separate program. They were what happened when the method was applied correctly.
Robert Santana has spent 20+ years studying, researching, and coaching strength training and nutrition — as a PhD, a Registered Dietitian, a Starting Strength Coach, a competitive lifter, and the owner of a Phoenix-based gym. He built Strong & Sleek to bring the methodology that works for serious lifters to anyone who wants real results without the dogma.
Robert is introduced to strength training by his father at the Leaning Tower YMCA in Niles, IL. He was too young to start but not too young to observe and begin counting down the years until he could.
BS in Dietetics and MS in Kinesiology from Western Illinois University. Registered Dietitian license earned. Competed in strengthlifting, powerlifting, and Olympic weightlifting. Earned the Starting Strength Coach credential — one of the most rigorous strength training certifications in the industry — and later became a Seminar Staff Coach.
Robert opens a private strength training gym in Phoenix, built for real barbell work. Thousands of coaching hours logged. Clients drive in from out of state to train.
Robert earns a PhD in Nursing & Health Innovation from Arizona State — because reading research without someone translating it for you matters.
Two decades of methodology, a private gym full of results, and a clear point of view get a name. Strong & Sleek launches as the home for serious training that gets you the body you actually want — online for clients anywhere, in-person in Phoenix.
You don't have to take Robert's word for it. Over 100 podcast episodes, years of articles, and a YouTube channel full of form breakdowns and real client coaching. Start there.
The Weights & Plates Podcast
Robert and Coach Trent Jones cut through the supplement industry, the diet trends, and the gym-bro folklore. No clickbait, no hot takes — just two coaches who’ve been in the weight room for twenty years showing their work.
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02Every client who’s gotten the body they wanted started with one decision. Let's talk if you're ready for a change.
