COURTNEY BLACK ON BECOMING A FITNESS PHENOMENON

The queen of home workouts tells Katie Wright about gaining a cult following during a ‘crazy’ year.

If you were to ask me, ‘Who has got you through the pandemic?’ I would say two people. Firstly, my best friend Mikey. Secondly, Courtney Black.

Why? Because doing Black’s intense home workouts every morning has had an enormously positive effect on my mental health at a time when I’ve needed it most – and I’m not the only one.

“It really rocketed when I started doing the live [Instagram] workouts and went up to 30,000 viewers one day. It’s crazy,” says Black, who now has more than

785K Instagram followers, a massive leap from the 267K she had before the first UK lockdown started last March. Not only that, with 65,000 paid subscribers on her Courtney Black Fitness app, the 24-yearold is raking it in, too.

Known collectively as her ‘warriors’, fans of the London-born trainer are evangelical about the workouts, sharing on social media their impressive before and after photos whenever Black runs one of her regular 28-day challenges, setting a gruelling schedule of daily (or sometimes twice daily) sessions.

That may seem like a lot of success at a young age, but it’s been a hard road for Black to get to this point. At the age of 17, while working a nine to five job in finance, she developed an eating disorder and started obsessively exercising for several hours a day.

“People cottoned onto it, because I wasn’t eating in front of anyone, I was really, really skinny, I was losing lots of weight and I was going to the gym really early,” she says.

“One day, I went to the gym at about half four in the morning, it was a 24-hour gym, and personal trainers were coming up to me and asking me if I was OK.”

She eventually admitted to her mum that she was struggling and, over the course of two to three years, recovered. While Black didn’t seek medical help, you should speak to your GP if you are experiencing symptoms which may suggest an eating disorder.

After doing a personal training course in her spare time,

Black started taking on clients, eventually taking the plunge and becoming a PT full time. After gradually growing her Instagram following, her fitness career really took off during the pandemic and now, the Instagram star has published her first book,

The Pocket PT. Detailing a 28-day fitness plan, it’s the perfect beginner’s guide, with illustrated instructions for each exercise.

The Pocket PT by Courtney Black, photography by David Cummings, is published by Harper Thorsons, priced at £14.99 (harpercollins.co.uk)