Leeds prison worker launches new business in lockdown

When a prison worker from Armley, who is a qualified personal trainer, was put on furlough, she decided to use her skills to help others stay fit whilst at home in lockdown.

Katy Padam, 37, ran a series of free Instagram live workouts each week from the attic of her home which she shares with three generations of her family.

She said: “I’d gone from working inside the locked doors of the prison where I loved being a personal development coach to finding myself without a job to go to and having to spend most of my time inside my family home.

“But as I trained life coach, a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and personal trainer, I knew it was mind over matter and this was a challenge that so many people were experiencing.

“So, I decided to use my PT and life coach knowledge to help others online.”

Katy had also been working as a fitness instructor in her spare time in boutique gym Trib3 in Leeds City Centre and F45 training in Manchester northern quarter, another 2 jobs she was “gutted” to not be able to do in lockdown.

“With all my experience from prisons, gyms and overcoming my own life challenges, I decided to do something positive and see the time as an opportunity to help others as well as share my love of exercise and my ambition to become a personal trainer full time.”

Katy who had previously used her instagram @katypadam to share her love of travelling, going out with friends and self-development, began to focus on her passion of sharing content to help others become fit and healthy and “most of all confident.”

“I have always struggled with my self-esteem but I found that fitness, life coaching and my mindset helped me to overcome any blips in confidence.

“Initially I was petrified about delivering live workouts online as I’d only ever coached people one to one & in Group fitness classes, in real life so it was out of my comfort zone.

“But I pushed through it and committed myself to a weekly timetable so people could make sure fitness and a good routine was part of their day whilst being confined to the home.”

Within weeks Katy built up a strong online following, all from the attic in her family home which she had also grown up in.

She even got request for personal training clients over zoom and FaceTime.

Katy said: “The live video workouts helped people to see the real me and that I just want to help.

“Then when I got the bad news that I was actually being made redundant from the prison, this period had made me realise that I can help people just in a different way.”

Again, with several social media posts, Katy’s business ‘Coached by Katy’ was up and running and she was overwhelmed with the interest.

Katy now runs Zoom classes, one-to-ones online and offline, park bootcamps and online coaching plans.