Yes. Equipment you buy to run your coaching business is deductible, and for most coaches it can be written off in full the year it is purchased. The two things that decide how clean the deduction is: what the gear is actually used for, and how much each item cost.
Dumbbells, racks, and cameras used for the business count
Anything ordinary and necessary for delivering your coaching is fair game. That includes free weights, racks, benches, bands, kettlebells, mats, and timers used in client sessions; the camera, tripod, lighting, and microphone you use to film programs and form-check content; and the laptop, phone gear, and software that run the online side of the business. If you rent studio space and outfit it, the buildout gear counts too.
The test is business purpose, not the type of item. A squat rack in a commercial studio where you train clients is obviously business equipment. The same rack in your garage can also qualify when your business genuinely runs through it, filming programs there, coaching clients remotely from it, but the more a purchase overlaps with your personal training habits, the more the next two sections matter.
The $2,500 rule that lets you expense gear immediately
Normally, equipment with a useful life beyond a year is a capital asset that gets depreciated over several years. Small businesses rarely need to bother, for two reasons. First, the de minimis safe harbor lets you expense items costing $2,500 or less per item or invoice immediately, in the year of purchase, as ordinary expenses. Nearly everything a coach buys, individual dumbbells, a bench, a camera body, a mic, falls under that ceiling. Second, for bigger purchases, Section 179 and bonus depreciation generally allow immediate write-off of qualifying equipment anyway, though the details are worth confirming for a large buy like a full rack-and-platform setup or an expensive camera package.
Practical habit: keep invoices itemized. Ten kettlebells at $80 each is unambiguous under the safe harbor. One vague $4,000 receipt for assorted gear is harder to defend and may push you into depreciation territory unnecessarily.
Gear you also use personally, the split matters
Equipment used for both client work and your own training is deductible only to the extent of business use. A camera used 90% for filming programs supports a 90% deduction. A home gym you built mostly for yourself, where an occasional client video happens, supports very little. Be honest about the percentage, write down how you arrived at it, and remember that your own workouts are personal even though you are a coach, the same logic that makes a personal gym membership nondeductible.
Deduct equipment on Schedule C, where it reduces the profit subject to income tax and the 15.3% self-employment tax. Keep receipts, note business purpose at purchase time, and photograph your studio or filming setup once in a while; contemporaneous evidence of business use is the strongest support if the deduction is ever questioned.