Katy at Play Fitness and Coaching

Katy at Play Fitness and Coaching Helping women unleash their inner twenty-something and say hello to a more confident, energetic self

A client's review landed this week and it's stuck with us since."Normal shapes, sizes and abilities."That's how she desc...
11/09/2026

A client's review landed this week and it's stuck with us since.

"Normal shapes, sizes and abilities."

That's how she described the room. Not extraordinary. Not inspirational. Not before-and-after. Normal.

In an industry that photographs six women out of six hundred in transformation photos and calls it representative, normal is the review we've been waiting for.

It means someone walked in expecting to feel like the exception and instead just felt like... herself, among other women exactly like her.

This is the whole point of what we've built. Not a room full of extraordinary. A room full of normal, getting stronger, together.

Comment "normal" if that's exactly the room you've been looking for.

Katy

Two osteopaths. Two years. One ruptured disc.Lisa's back pain didn't ease off... it just kept coming back, patched up fo...
09/09/2026

Two osteopaths. Two years. One ruptured disc.

Lisa's back pain didn't ease off... it just kept coming back, patched up for a while, then right back where it started. Two years of that is exhausting in a way that's hard to explain unless you've lived it.

Then a physiotherapist told her something that sounds almost backwards: try strength training. Not more caution. Not more rest. The opposite of everything the pain had been telling her to do for two years.

She started with a two-week trial and signed up full time before it even ended.

Six months on, the back pain that made her life "pretty miserable," her words, has all but gone. Her programme was built around the injury from day one, adjusted whenever something felt off.

This isn't about pushing through pain. It's about building the muscle that actually protects the joint, instead of avoiding using it altogether.

We hear some version of Lisa's story a lot. Women told for years to be careful, to rest, to protect. And what actually changes things is the opposite: getting stronger around the injury, not around it.

Thanks Lisa, for trusting us with something that had been going on a very long time.

DM us and tell us what pain's been stopping you from doing and we will share some simple suggestions of what you could be doing at home to help.

Katy

Every consultation starts pretty much the same way."I don't really know why I'm here. I just know something has to chang...
07/09/2026

Every consultation starts pretty much the same way.

"I don't really know why I'm here. I just know something has to change."

We've heard some version of that sentence more times than almost anything else in this job. Ther eis rarely a big dramatic statement. Nobody arrives with a five-year plan and a vision board.

Most women turn up slightly apologetic, slightly unsure if they're allowed to want something just for themselves.

Here's what the years of consultations like this one has taught us. That sentence isn't a lack of clarity. It's the clearest thing a person can say.

You don't need a reason lined up like evidence in a court case. "Something has to change" is a complete sentence. It's enough.

We ask a few more questions after that. Sleep. Energy. What she's tried before. What she's actually worried about. But we've never once needed her to justify wanting more for herself.

If you've got that exact sentence sitting somewhere and no idea what to do with it... that's what the consultation is for.

Not a plan. A conversation.

Katy

"I've never felt patronised as a disabled person here." Kate told us that recently. In her experience, that's rare in th...
06/09/2026

"I've never felt patronised as a disabled person here."

Kate told us that recently. In her experience, that's rare in this industry.

It's stayed with me. Because underneath, this isn't really a fitness industry problem. It's a society problem. It's bigger than a bit of bad coaching here and there.

I'm disabled too. For most of my life, when it came to movement, other people decided what I was capable of. Not me. Not my body. Other people, making assumptions about a body they'd never lived in and calling it common sense.

I know exactly how rotten it is to be coached, or taught, or spoken to in a way that assumes what you can and can't do before you've even tried. I know precisely what that feels like from the inside. So we don't do it to anyone.

Anyone. Disabled or able-bodied. Training from a wheelchair, managing a dodgy hip, or twenty years since you lifted anything heavier than the shopping bags. Everyone in that room gets exactly the same rule and treatment.

Myself and Chloe are the experts in exercise, programming and coaching. That's our job, and we take it properly seriously. But you're the expert in your own body. What it can do, what it can't, what it's ready for today. Always.

Kate says that's what she's found here. Not a category. Not a diagnosis with a woman attached to the back of it. Just herself, coached properly, by people who understand exactly why that matters.

It's not a technique I use. It's a refusal to pass on something I know, from the inside, is genuinely rotten.

We're Play Fitness & Coaching, for midlife and older women, by midlife women.
We will not patronise you. We will not make you feel like crap about a body you're just trying to live in.

Katy x

Average age 53. Oldest 82. That's who's actually on our 5-Week Beginners Strength Programme.Right at the start of the pr...
04/09/2026

Average age 53. Oldest 82. That's who's actually on our 5-Week Beginners Strength Programme.

Right at the start of the programme, one woman told us plainly: "I wasn't sure my body would let me."

Stiff. Tired. Convinced strength training at her age was probably someone else's thing, the sort of thing other, more organised women did. Treating herself like a category she'd been placed in, rather than a person she still got to be.

Another woman starting the same programme put it differently, but meant something close to the same thing: "It might help you reconnect with an old you who you have lost contact with." Building strength, in her words, not just physically but mentally too.

We didn't write that line. We wish we had.

Real, physical relief as well, from a third beginner on the same intake, no poetry required: "My biggest win is the lack of stiffness in my left leg." Not everyone's transformation needs a violin. Some of them just need a leg that behaves.

Across everyone who's completed the programme, they've scored us 9.71 out of 10 for recommending us to a friend.

Average age 53. Oldest 82. Ordinary, not exceptional.

We're Play Fitness & Coaching, for midlife and older women, by midlife women.

The 5-Week Beginners Strength Programme starts 21st September.

More details in the link in bio, or DM us START.

Katy x

Across everything that matters, our last seventeen 5-week beginners rate us 9.44 out of 10. Either means we've got very ...
02/09/2026

Across everything that matters, our last seventeen 5-week beginners rate us 9.44 out of 10.

Either means we've got very easily pleased clients or we're doing something right. We'd like to think it's the second one.

Ask them how safe and comfortable they feel training here. 9.82 out of 10.

Practically unanimous, which is more agreement than we've ever managed to get seventeen women to reach on anything else, including what music to play.

"Katy makes achieving your goals feel not only possible but inevitable." Christine said that, five weeks in. Inevitable is a big word to reach for that early, and frankly more generous than we'd have written for ourselves.

One woman's answer to her biggest win, unprompted and unpolished: "I've never done any fitness, am quite unco-ordinated, and my brain struggles to move arms and legs, forgets movements and instructions." She showed up anyway. Five weeks later, she's still here, still occasionally sending her left arm where her right arm was supposed to go which is totally cool, because the important bit is that she is still turning up on purpose.

"You'll be surprised at what you can achieve." Not us saying it. One of our own beginners, five weeks in, and considerably less sceptical than she was on week one.

Seven of our last seventeen beginners rated every single question a perfect ten.

This isn't our best week, or a handpicked one, and we promise we didn't bribe anyone with biscuits. It's what seventeen ordinary women, five weeks into training with us, actually say when we ask.

We're Play Fitness & Coaching, for midlife and older women, by midlife women.

The 5-Week Beginners Strength Programme starts 21st September, and spaces are filling.

DM us START, or book a call this week to talk it through - details in our bio.

Katy x

"10000000000% worth it." Lisa's actual words. We checked the zeros twice.Asked how it feels as an investment in herself,...
01/09/2026

"10000000000% worth it." Lisa's actual words. We checked the zeros twice.

Asked how it feels as an investment in herself, she didn't stop at the zeros:
"Any initial concerns about what I could or couldn't do melted away in the supportive environment of each session. Knowing we are all showing up and being met where we are at, yet being challenged to give it our all and work together."

Asked how she felt now compared to when she started:
"Feeling stronger, more energy, less stress. Happier that I'm prioritising something for me."

No caveats, no "for my age," none of the usual hedging women do around their own progress. Just the facts, stated plainly.

Asked about a moment or achievement that stands out: "Gaining more confidence in what I can do. E.g. lunges, lifting heavier."

Lisa rates how supported and encouraged she feels a perfect 10 out of 10. Same score for how likely she is to recommend us to a friend.

It reached outside the gym too. Asked what she'd noticed changing elsewhere: "Loved ones being impressed with my consistency and early workouts! Clearer head to focus on work."

Her advice to someone exactly where she was, unsure about starting: "Make a commitment to yourself and give it a try. You'll be surprised by how quickly you achieve so much more than you might expect."

Not motivation. Not a personality overhaul. Just being met where she was, and challenged from there.

We're Play Fitness & Coaching, for midlife and older women, by midlife women.

DM us START if you're wondering whether it's worth it, we'll let Lisa's ten zeros answer that (so we did count them).

The 5-Week Beginners Strength Programme starts 21st September, more details in the link in bio, or DM us START.

Katy x

For midlife women, by midlife women.Not a slogan we picked because it sounded good on a poster. That's some of the squad...
31/08/2026

For midlife women, by midlife women.

Not a slogan we picked because it sounded good on a poster. That's some of the squad in that photo. Not stock imagery, not models paid to look thrilled about a kettlebell, the women who genuinely train here, week in and week out, in a room built specifically for them.

Every one of them walked in as a beginner once. Bad sleep, a body doing something new and unannounced, a calendar that was already full before they'd added themselves to it, all of it familiar territory in that room.

Nobody apologises for turning up looking like they've had four hours' sleep, because everyone else has too. (And NEVER apologise for anything like that, anyway)

Our coaches are midlife women ourselves, which changes the coaching more than you'd think.

It means we don't flinch when a session's not happening this week because life has, once again, had other plans. It means we know the difference between pushing you and pushing you too far, mostly because we've done both to ourselves first and lived to regret one of them.

The 5-Week Beginners Strength Programme starts 21st September, central Brighton. A handful of spaces left.

DM us START or hit the link in our bio to find out more.

Katy x

She joined us a year ago, mid-fifties, on the 5-Week Beginners Strength Programme. Demanding job. Complicated life. Hold...
29/08/2026

She joined us a year ago, mid-fifties, on the 5-Week Beginners Strength Programme.

Demanding job. Complicated life. Holding everything together for everyone else.

In her own words, she needed to finally invest in herself. She was nervous. She'd tried things before, and stopped.

She is still with us.

A year on, she's alcohol-free. Training twice a week. Back into clothes she'd written off. She's done gruelling charity hikes and dusted off her bike for the first time in years.

She says training is something she genuinely loves now, calmer, stronger, and considerably better equipped for whatever her life throws at her.

She was a complete beginner when she walked in. Most of the women who join us are. None of it happened at once. It happened one ordinary week at a time, for a year.

That's the whole method.

If you're starting from exactly where she was, the next intake starts 21st September.

We're Play Fitness & Coaching, for midlife and older women, by midlife women.

DM us START, or tap the link in bio for dates and details.

Katy x

The hardest rep in strength training, for a lot of women, was never the deadlift. It was booking the consultation call. ...
27/08/2026

The hardest rep in strength training, for a lot of women, was never the deadlift. It was booking the consultation call. That's the rep that actually matters.

Siobhan is 54. Before this summer, she had never done a single day of strength training in her life. Not one.

Her proudest moment so far wasn't a weight on the bar. It was getting over the hump of talking about it, and actually doing it.

Her words: "I'm showing up and starting, and realising there's a chance it might all work." Not a transformation story yet. Just the door, finally, opening.

We see this constantly. Someone talks about starting for months. Sometimes years. The conversation happens in their own head, on repeat, and never actually goes anywhere. Then the actual training turns out to be the easy part, because once you're in the room, you're just doing the next rep.

The hard part was ever deciding to walk through the door in the first place.

If talking about it is the part you're stuck on, that's not a problem you need to solve on your own before you talk to us. Come and have a chat.

Most women realise fairly quickly that there's somewhere here they'll actually feel like they belong.

And the session you've been talking yourself out of tends to feel like a walk in the park once you're in the room, because of the space, and because of who's coaching you.

We're Play Fitness & Coaching, for midlife and older women, by midlife women.

DM us START if talking about it is where you're stuck. We'll take it from there.

Katy x

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Brighton And Hove

Telephone

+447956004966

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