Coach Lil is here to help you
finally enjoy your body.
Qualifications & credentials
Coach Lil holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Physical Education from Victoria University, Australia, and an Associate Diploma of Applied Science in Fitness Leadership. She is a licensed NSCA-Certified Personal Trainer and a Fitness Institute International Certified Personal Training Specialist, with specialized certifications spanning strength, functional training, nutrition, and post-rehabilitation, plus 30 years of professional coaching experience in Palm Beach, FL and online.
Education
License
Fitness Institute International (FII)
Specialist certifications earned under this credential:
Movement & specialty training
Personal development training
And the athletic career that built everything else:
- Undefeated Australian National Wrestling Champion (1991–2005)
- World Wrestling Championships, 14 Years
- Oceania Gold Medalist 1995, 1996, 2002
- Commonwealth Gold Medalist 1993, 1994, 1995
- Ranked 5th In The World, 1995
- USA Beach Wrestling Champion 2006
- Competed For Australia & Macedonia In Two Olympic Qualifying Events (2004, 2008)
Coach Lil coaching Florida State's women's wrestling team at national championships.
Why Coach Lil does this
Coach Lil has healed her own serious spinal injuries, including a broken vertebra and severe neck damage, through breathwork, body awareness, and learning to listen to her body's signals, and now teaches these same methods to personal training clients in Palm Beach, FL and online.
Coach Lil started in fitness because movement felt like play. Always had. She wanted to spend her life in it.
But the deeper work, the body wisdom, the breathwork, the nervous system, came from somewhere she didn't expect.
Coach Lil was an undefeated Australian wrestling champion. Fifteen years competing on the international wrestling arena. Winning was a priority, because at the time, everything was about that. It was important. Not only to push hard but to learn your limits. That drive shaped her in ways she is still understanding.
What Coach Lil didn't know then was how to heal.
The Broken Disc
Coach Lil hurt her back badly mid-career, a broken vertebra. No one could remove the pain. She worked with body workers, physios, doctors. Sometimes outside help was exactly what was needed. But what changed everything wasn't a treatment, it was learning to listen first. To go inward, identify what her body was seeking, and then find what could support that. Your body does the actual healing. Learning to hear what it needs to do that, that is what Coach Lil discovered on the floor one day, breathing, paying attention for maybe the first time. That was the first time she met what she now calls the inner physician, the one she helps every client find in themselves.
The Neck
Years later, severe damage in Coach Lil's neck. Waking up screaming at night. Again, the experts had nothing. Again, she went inside. Breath. Intuition. Working with the tissue, not against it, until it finally released. A friend watched her and said: “You have to teach that.”
That is where Body Wisdom came from. Not a textbook. Necessity.
What shaped the way Coach Lil works
Coach Lil trained as an undefeated Australian wrestling champion for 15 years before discovering that the most important skill in movement, for athletes and everyday clients alike, is knowing when to push and when to listen.
Coach Lil grew up in Macedonia in a culture where women were expected to be quiet, stay home, follow the guidance of the men in the household. You didn't trust yourself. You deferred. You listened to the authority outside you.
Coach Lil fought her way out of that. Became a champion. Crossed the world.
And then she learned something even harder than fighting: how to listen. Not to the experts, not to the programs, not to what someone else said her body should need. To herself.
That balance, knowing when to push and when to go inward, is the thing Coach Lil teaches more than anything else. Because most people have been trained their whole lives to override what they feel and wait for someone else to tell them what to do.
Coach Lil's mission is to give that authority back.
Coach Lil's coach Sam was the first person who showed her what it meant to have someone look after your whole person, not just your performance, not just your body, but you. He believed in her long before she believed in herself.
"I always wanted someone to look over me, to be there in that complete way. Sam was that for me. Now I am that for my clients."
Alongside wrestling, Coach Lil spent years studying everything she could find, NLP, Touch for Health, network chiropractic, breathwork, yoga, meditation, not building a course catalogue, but searching for what worked. Every modality became a piece of what she now teaches. All of it lived experience.
One moment summed it up: her coach told her to imagine she was ten tons. Someone tried to turn her on the mat. They couldn't move her. Not because her body had changed, because her body believed what her mind had declared. She felt it then: the inner state and the physical state are the same thing.
Lila Ristevska competing at the World Championships 2003 in Madison Square Garden in New York.
What Coach Lil believes
Coach Lil's approach to personal training is built on the belief that sustainable movement comes from curiosity and joy rather than discipline imposed from outside, and that every client, regardless of age or injury history, can learn to become their own authority on what their body needs.
"Your body is your constant companion. Your consort."
It is with you every moment of your life. And most of us have never been taught to listen to it.
We've been taught to push through. To follow the plan. To trust the expert, the trainer, the doctor, the program, anyone but ourselves. Coach Lil understands that pattern. She lived it.
What Coach Lil knows is this: the moment you stop fighting your body and get genuinely curious about it, everything changes. You stop needing to be pushed. You start wanting to move, not because you should, but because it feels good to be alive in there.
Movement as joy. Movement as play. The kind you did as a kid without thinking about it, climbing things, splashing through water, exploring just to see what's there.
That's not childish. That's human. And most of us have been trained right out of it.
The fitness industry often leads with fear, discipline, and aesthetics, an all-or-nothing message that quietly says you're not enough as you are. But a body that moves from fear or self-judgment doesn't stay moving for long. What sustains is joy. The curiosity of exploration. The carrot, not the stick. Yes, there's discipline in this work, but it grows naturally when movement feels good, when you feel good in your own skin. The goal isn't a transformation you white-knuckle your way through. It's a relationship with your body that you want to keep.
Your body already knows what it needs. My job is to help you hear it.
A little more about Coach Lil
Coach Lil is a Palm Beach, FL-based personal trainer and body wisdom coach who continues to train daily in Russian Systema, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Gyrokinesis, and Pilates, bringing the same curiosity she asks of every client to her own practice every day.
Coach Lil was born in a small town in Macedonia and grew up in Australia. She comes from a culture where women were expected to follow a very traditional path. Learning to step outside that, and then later learning when to be still, shaped everything about how she coaches. The balance between fighting for yourself and listening to yourself is something she knows deeply, and tries to help every client find.
Coach Lil still moves every single day, Russian Systema, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Gyrokinesis, Pilates, the gym, a walk on the beach, whatever her body is asking for that morning. She collects teas. She loves to travel, to camp, to get her hands in a garden. The Florida springs. Somewhere in nature, away from screens.
Coach Lil has been to India, and has studied breath and movement traditions from many different corners of the world. She carries all of it.
More than anything, Coach Lil is someone who genuinely loves being in a body, and wants that for every person she works with.
Why Coach Lil is still doing this
Coach Lil has been training clients as a personal trainer and body wisdom coach for 30 years, and describes the work as still feeling like play, because watching a client go from avoiding their body to trusting it is something that never gets old.
Thirty years in and it still feels like play. That's the honest answer.
Coach Lil is that person for her clients the way Sam was for her. The one who holds your whole story. Who sees you walk in and reads the body before a word is said. Who celebrates the small moments, because she knows how important they are.
When someone stops avoiding themselves and starts trusting themselves, when they go from "what's the point" to "I think I can do this", that never gets old.
That is why Coach Lil is still here.
Let's talk.
Fill out the evaluation. Coach Lil reviews it personally and reaches out to schedule your free 20-minute discovery call. Coach Lil will find out where you are, what you need, and whether working together is the right fit.