NOTHING could have prepared super-fit Leanne Hainsby-Alldis for the year from hell.
In the shape of her life, in 2022 she was diagnosed with breast cancer, had a miscarriage and held a funeral for one of her closest friends.
But the cycling instructor and influencer, now 39 and mum to a six-month-old son, Ace, says keeping active helped her fight through the trauma.
Leanne trained all her life to become a professional dancer and was then Britain’s first female instructor on cycling app Peloton for its 2018 UK launch.
She admits she punished her body for years with ever harder workouts.
Last month, Leanne returned to coaching classes for the first time since her shock diagnosis four years ago – with a new perspective.
Rather than shake her lifelong obsession with exercise, the triple trauma has strengthened Leanne’s belief that movement is medicine.
She wants to help more women get strong and able to live the lives they want – and cast off hang-ups about bikini bodies and mirror selfies.
She tells Sun Health: “You have to be fit for life.
“I know looking back that I absolutely took moving my body for granted.
“I danced all through childhood, went to performance college for just shy of 12 years and then moved into fitness – I burnt the candle at both ends.
“Then being rocked with cancer took everything back to the simplest things.”
The first horror of 2022 was Leanne’s miscarriage during her first pregnancy with new husband Ben Alldis, also a Peloton instructor.
Then close pal Danielle Hampson died suddenly of a cardiac arrest at age 34 on her own wedding day, where Leanne had been due to be a bridesmaid.
To round off the awful run of heartbreak, just two days before Danielle’s funeral, Leanne discovered a lump on her left breast.
“I knew in my gut that it was cancer,” she says, although she had to push for the diagnosis after doctors dismissed it as a cyst.
Doctors confirmed Leanne, then just 35, had triple-positive breast cancer which was caught early and slow growing, but dangerous and in need of treatment.
Still desperate to be a mum, she had eggs harvested for IVF and injections to shut down her ovaries in a bid to protect them from what came next.
Surgeons operated to remove the lump and diseased lymph nodes, and she also endured radiotherapy and 12 weeks of chemotherapy.
Treatment successfully beat back the disease and she was declared cancer-free in 2023, but the toll even on her ultra-fit body was immense.
Even dog walking was difficult and for months she was too weak to lift her arm above her head.
London-based Leanne said: “I had to have super-intense physio and it was debilitating, but it gave me so much gratitude.
“There’s such a mental block if you’re coming back from illness, injury, grief or some really big life stuff.
“It’s hard to get back in.
“I really understood more than anything, you have to be fit for life.
“Now, I bang that drum every day.”
Two years after her gruelling cancer treatment, Leanne and Ben got pregnant again and their son, Ace, was born in December 2025.
Pregnancy and childbirth added to the toll on her body and she admits she was “not my best” after an intense two years.
Leanne’s perspective shifted and she now wants to help women get stronger so they can ride out life’s ups and downs.
“It’s not about getting fit to look good in a bikini on holiday – who cares?” she says.
“If something rubbish comes your way, moving your body gives you a little bit of being in a good place.
“Should you ever be in a position where your body needs to do the best it can for you, you’re already there.
“Our bodies are constantly changing and it would be lovely if we can stop punishing them and work with them.
“As you get older, it becomes less about how you look and more about how you feel.
“I had a baby six months ago and don’t feel my strongest but my goal is to be stronger when I’m playing with my little boy.
“So I think it would be great to think about the version of you next year that can do all the things you want.”
NHS figures show that nearly three out of ten of women – 28 per cent – are “inactive” and do less than 30 minutes of exercise per week.
The health service says all adults should do at least two-and-a-half hours of moderate activity, such as hiking or cycling, per week.
Or the same health benefits can be gotten from 75 minutes of more vigorous exercise like running or sports, it says.
Leanne says the habits are easiest to keep if started early in life.
But according to Sport England, fewer than half of schoolgirls – 45 per cent – get the recommended 60 minutes of exercise per day.
A poll by Age UK found about a third of women were put off sport and exercise by bad memories of PE classes at school.
Others say they do not have enough time or feel too self-conscious to get stuck in.
Leanne encourages people to find a routine that works for them and not feel put off by expectations of others or what they see online.
She said: “Try to just have a bit of fun.
“Maybe that’s putting a podcast on and going out for a walk.
“In my 20s I was definitely guilty of going really hard in a workout, once in a blue moon.
“We fall into this trap of wanting a quick fix and wanting to optimise the time we have.
“But the way to longevity is consistency.
“Imagine you’re doing a food shop, you’re going to the big supermarket and walking around for a really long time for a weekly shop.
“Strength is getting those shopping bags out of your trolley, into the car, out of the car, into your house.
“Cardio is being able to walk around that big shop for as long as you need to.
“The healthiest people are doing a variety of things consistently.
“Most importantly, have fun!”