Personal trainer Ema Headridge is boxing clever after weaning herself off work to launch her own fitness business.

Ema, from Shiremoor, worked as a property maintenance manager, but keen to turn her love of keeping fit into a career, began a course of training by night as well as running her own classes.

As popularity for her keep fit and Boxercise classes grew, Ema reduced the hours of her old job to part-time and teamed up with her partner Lee, a Royal Marine Reserve and fitness coach, to launch Leema Fitness.

Now Ema has thrown in the towel on her job completely to focus all her time and effort on Leema Fitness, which offers a range of classes from Boxercise and Zumba to aqua aerobics and armchair aerobics, as well as personal training.

Ema said: "I've always loved keeping fit and have kickboxed for seven years but was terrified at the thought of actually trying to make a business out of it because of the initial financial insecurity."

 "So instead I decided to ease my way into self-employment by firstly training on a night and then dropping my old job to part-time as the popularity for my classes grew."

Ema turned for help to the Business Factory in Wallsend, which advises people in North Tyneside on how best to work for themselves. She received help in putting together a business plan, setting up a simple accounting system and launching a website.

Now after only a few months in business, Leema Fitness is launching their own boot camps and looking to take on freelance fitness coaches.

Debbie Dunn from the Business Factory said: "Ema's business demonstrates that you don’t always have to take the plunge when setting up your own business."

"She took small steps to get to the position of being able to focus all her efforts and time on her business and it has really paid off for her."

Ema added: "I really love my job - I can spend my days keeping fit and get paid for it."