Changing the face of women’s fitness

Changing the face of women’s fitness

Kate Rowe-Ham is our Best Instagram Account award winner from 2020 and we are so excited to share more about her story with you today. Kate is best known for her live free IG workouts (which are tough, if you’ve ever tried one!) and more recently she has graced the insides of Women’s Health magazine and appeared on our TV screens alongside the likes of fitness royalty, Joe Wicks.

We all know that Rome wasn’t built in a day and likewise, you cannot build an Instagram account and loyal following overnight. So how did Kate build up such a connection with her audience and what thought goes into her posts? She first started her Instagram account, @katerh_fitness “in the hope of sharing an honest and authentic perspective of how fitness might be achieved from one busy working mum to another.”

Kate wanted to share her passion and show other women that “moving can be such a powerful tool in helping one cope in times of stress” and due to her perseverance and commitment, her account has organically grown from strength to strength.

Her committed audience includes followers of all ages but she aims to target what she sees as a gap in the market: “to empower older women. I would like to encourage women to see it’s never too late to reach their fitness goals, regardless of their starting point, and to give them the tools needed to... navigate this time in their lives.”

This “time” is something that Kate talks very openly about: her experience with the menopause. She often feels confronted with social barriers when talking about women’s health and she’s still working to smash them down. She believes “in order to encourage women to get and stay fit and healthy well into later life, we need to start championing a movement to celebrate this demographic by diversifying the images we currently see in our feeds on social media.”

If we hear you say a little “amen” to that, we don’t blame you. Social media can become an echo chamber of young, fit and healthy women who all look and act alike. It’s not often a space to embrace our differences and celebrate our own bodies without thinking we could be a bit more like “so and so”.

Talking openly about women’s health has helped Kate personally: “It has helped me accept my body more and to embrace change - something I would like to share. It has made me more aware of how I train some women but the bottom line is we can be just as fit, active and mobile as we want to be. I have in fact achieved some of my PB’s in my 40’s.” This raises the question of age-related fitness and what exactly fitness means. In truth, fitness will mean something different to us all for all of our bodies are unique. To Kate, “fitness means feeling strong, healthy, mobile and connected to your body, so you can move and train safely to the best of your ability.”

Being unique is something that Kate is passionate about and one of the best pieces of advice she’s ever received was about just that. “Always be authentically and

unapologetically you. I think I struggled for a long time trying to please people and worried so much about what people thought. As I’ve aged I’ve become increasingly aware that being me and embracing me is so much better. I credit my husband for always telling me to be myself.” Self-kindness and self-confidence are key to feeling at peace with our bodies and getting the most out of them. We needn’t smash a tough gym workout 3 times a week, either.

Daily acts of movement and self-care go a long way and definitely play in part in Kate’s growing success as a face for women’s health and fitness. To date, she has been part of some amazing collaborations, been featured in Women's Health Magazine, she has been on Sunday Brunch and she has been spotlighted among the likes of Joe Wicks!

“I have felt very honoured” she tells us, “I have felt overwhelmed and out of my depth having qualified late. I am aware there are many younger trainers in fitness who may be more knowledgeable as they have been around longer so to be given an opportunity to represent what I feel is a minority, is great.”

But the fun doesn’t end there. Kate is working on an online training program and app to be launched this month in march 2021! The app is aimed at women over 35 who are looking for more bespoke and personalised training plans as well as offering meal plans to help them reach their goals. A key focus and major selling point for Kate’s app is the incorporation of menopause experts in building the plans: “I am hoping that as well as my online coaching platform being a success, I can raise more awareness and support around fitness and menopause. I would like to create a shift in the media to celebrate this demographic a little more” Kate opens us to us.

With all her success to date, we have every faith that her menopause-focused app, IG workouts and TV appearances will go a long way. You heard it here first, Kate Rowe-Ham is changing the face of women’s fitness for the better.

You can find out more about Kate, and her incredible live IG workouts for free, by following her on Instagram @katerh_fitness