Latest news with #TheBodyCoach
The Citizen
23-07-2025
- Health
- The Citizen
Beat the winter blues with these must have mobile fitness apps
There's a wide range of Android apps that help you to stick to your goals in the winter months. Keep track of your fitness and health this winter. Picture: iStock. As winter passes the halfway mark, staying active during the colder months can be challenging if you don't love running in the dark after work or getting up early in the freezing cold to go to the gym. There's a wide range of Android apps that help you to stick to your goals in the winter months. Here are some apps you can use for indoor exercise, anytime and anywhere. 5 Minute Yoga TCL says the 5-Minute Yoga is ideal for those who want to do quick daily yoga workouts. Each session is created from a selection of simple but effective yoga poses, making it suitable for beginners. Every pose features clear images and detailed instructions, ensuring all poses are performed correctly. Asana Rebel Asana Rebel is a yoga and fitness app designed for individuals seeking to achieve a fit body, shed weight, and adopt a healthy lifestyle. This app can help you lose weight, burn calories, strengthen your core, and increase flexibility. It's also great for balancing the body while focusing the mind, letting you leave the stress of the day behind. The Body Coach Transform your fitness with The Body Coach app by Joe Wicks, an all-in-one workout and fitness app featuring quick home workout sessions, HIIT workouts, Pilates, and yoga for beginners. The app also features a personalised meal planner and daily progress tools to keep you motivated. Centr Train like the MCU's Thor with an app backed by actor Chris Hemsworth. Centr's Fitness app provides personalised training based on your personal goals, preferences, and skill level. Whether you prefer home or gym workouts, Centr offers training options for every skill level. Fiit Whether you want to lose weight, get strong, improve flexibility or simply de-stress, Fiit lets you take high-quality workouts with leading personal trainers on your phone or tablet. FitOn Achieve personalised health and fitness goals with unlimited access to the best home workouts and exercise videos, from cardio to strength training to HIIT, yoga, Pilates, Barre, and much more. This app will get you sweating in a class that you love. Home Workout Home Workouts offers daily workout routines tailored to your primary muscle groups. In just a few minutes a day, you can build muscles and keep fit at home without having to go to the gym. No equipment or coach needed because all exercises can be performed with just your body weight. The app offers workouts for your abs, chest, legs, arms, and butt, as well as full-body workouts. Nike Training Club Unlock 300+ workouts with Nike Training Club. Work out with expert tools and set a new, personal best with the support of NTC's fitness diary, workout tracker, scheduling and more. Beyond training, This app covers mindfulness, nutrition, rest and connection for a holistic approach to mental wellness and physical health. Pilates Practising Pilates has many benefits for health and weight loss. Similar to yoga, these Pilates exercises for Android can not only help weight loss, enhance muscle strength, and improve balance and flexibility, but can also enhance energy, promote relaxation, and even improve sleep quality. Sweat Sweat, a personal training app featuring co-founder and elite head trainer Kayla Itsines is made for women. The app offers a broad suite of challenging, yet achievable programs with workouts you can do anywhere, anytime to progressively build your fitness. New programmes give you more ways to push yourself and get you closer to reaching your goals. ALSO READ: Smartphones: Powerful tools that enhance work and academic performance
The Independent
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Animation of Joe Wicks launched to help children keep fit
An animated character of online fitness coach Joe Wicks has been launched in a bid keep children fit over the summer holidays. The Body Coach's new animated persona talks children through exercises including jogging, squats and burpees in five-minute clips, which will be released via his YouTube channel. Wicks said the Government-backed Activate project aims to 'make movement fun'. In each clip Wicks' character performs various exercises accompanied by new animated characters known as the Activators. The first episode has been released on The Body Coach YouTube channel, with more episodes to be released each week over the school summer holidays. The animated series was launched at Ripple Primary School in Barking, east London, on Monday. Wicks and Health Secretary Wes Streeting met teachers and parents to discuss keeping children active. 'Activate is designed to make movement fun,' said Wicks. He told the PA news agency: 'We live in a world where it's very easy to be sedentary, it's very easy to rely on ultra-processed foods. 'So I think I've created something I personally think is different – it's about using technology and disrupting that passive screen time, and actually saying 'Come on kids, get up, let's do it'. 'I just want more people to see it and give it a go, because I know when they do, I think they're going to fall in love with it – the characters, the workouts and the music. 'It's going to be a really genuine useful thing for parents, I think, to get their kids moving. 'Because sometimes, especially in the summer holidays, kids are reluctant to move, this is something I think can really help with that.' Wicks went on: 'Activity doesn't have to be this perfect hour a day where you have an instructor or you're in a gym, actually, five minutes can be enough.' Health Secretary Wes Streeting told PA: 'Activate is a really great project, and the Government's proud to support it, because we want to get children, young people, more fit and active. 'One in five children are leaving primary school with obesity, so this is a really big challenge for us. 'And the truth is, if this was just a sort of boring government video it wouldn't have nearly as much success and impact as I think Activate is going to have, where you've got the energy and dynamism of Joe Wicks combined with some of the best creative minds and talents in our country and around the world. 'I think it's going to make it fun, I think it's going to make it accessible and that is the key to getting children and young people fit and active – meeting them where they are, making it accessible, making it free and making it fun.' Almost one in 10 children in reception year at school were obese, according to figures from the National Childhood Measurement Programme in England. This rises to 22.1% of pupils in Year 6, according to the 2023/24 data.
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Animation of Joe Wicks launched to help children keep fit
An animated character of online fitness coach Joe Wicks has been launched in a bid keep children fit over the summer holidays. The Body Coach's new animated persona talks children through exercises including jogging, squats and burpees in five-minute clips, which will be released via his YouTube channel. Wicks said the Government-backed Activate project aims to 'make movement fun'. In each clip Wicks' character performs various exercises accompanied by new animated characters known as the Activators. The first episode has been released on The Body Coach YouTube channel, with more episodes to be released each week over the school summer holidays. The animated series was launched at Ripple Primary School in Barking, east London, on Monday. Wicks and Health Secretary Wes Streeting met teachers and parents to discuss keeping children active. 'Activate is designed to make movement fun,' said Wicks. He told the PA news agency: 'We live in a world where it's very easy to be sedentary, it's very easy to rely on ultra-processed foods. 'So I think I've created something I personally think is different – it's about using technology and disrupting that passive screen time, and actually saying 'Come on kids, get up, let's do it'. 'I just want more people to see it and give it a go, because I know when they do, I think they're going to fall in love with it – the characters, the workouts and the music. 'It's going to be a really genuine useful thing for parents, I think, to get their kids moving. 'Because sometimes, especially in the summer holidays, kids are reluctant to move, this is something I think can really help with that.' Wicks went on: 'Activity doesn't have to be this perfect hour a day where you have an instructor or you're in a gym, actually, five minutes can be enough.' Health Secretary Wes Streeting told PA: 'Activate is a really great project, and the Government's proud to support it, because we want to get children, young people, more fit and active. 'One in five children are leaving primary school with obesity, so this is a really big challenge for us. 'And the truth is, if this was just a sort of boring government video it wouldn't have nearly as much success and impact as I think Activate is going to have, where you've got the energy and dynamism of Joe Wicks combined with some of the best creative minds and talents in our country and around the world. 'I think it's going to make it fun, I think it's going to make it accessible and that is the key to getting children and young people fit and active – meeting them where they are, making it accessible, making it free and making it fun.' Almost one in 10 children in reception year at school were obese, according to figures from the National Childhood Measurement Programme in England. This rises to 22.1% of pupils in Year 6, according to the 2023/24 data.
BBC News
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Joe Wicks says Glastonbury Festival workout 'the best of my life'
Joe Wicks returned to Glastonbury Festival to lead a live workout for the third year running, describing it as "one of the best workouts of my life". Thousands of people exercised alongside the fitness influencer at The Gateway stage on Thursday."To see all those faces and the energy, this is what I live for," Wicks told BBC Radio who is also known as The Body Coach, became a household name during the pandemic when he livestreamed PE lessons to hundreds of thousands of people each morning. Wicks, who has four young children with his wife Rosie, now has a following of close to five million people who watch the family's lives on Instagram. When asked if he had brought his children to Worthy Farm, Wicks replied: "Absolutely not." Glastonbury 2025: Full line-up and stage times for the weekendIn pictures: Glastonbury Festival day twoWhy there will be no Glastonbury Festival in 2026From £1 tickets to super fences and hip-hop - Glastonbury through the yearsTop tips for taking kids to Glastonbury Festival "I love them to death but I need a break, so we've spread them out among all our family because no-one's mad enough to have all four," he added."I think parents with kids (at Glastonbury) look so cool, but come eight o'clock at night when they get all grouchy, I want to go out dancing." Wicks said he enjoyed hosting live workouts at the farm as it brought "a bit of energy" to the festival, especially when people "have had a late night".He said he believes many people are now more health conscious and said the festival had "much more to offer" than drinking alcohol and eating food. "More people are running 5ks at the festival and there are places like the Healing Fields where you can meditate, take part in breathwork sessions and have a go at yoga, it's like a holiday," he added. Wicks has hosted workouts at festivals around the world but said Glastonbury had an energy "like no other".He added: "It's such a happy, energising place, the energy just can't be replicated anywhere else. It's wicked."
Telegraph
24-05-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
I lost 2st at 49 after cancelling my gym membership
I'd always been one of those lucky naturally slim people, with my weight ranging from 9st to 9st 7lb throughout my entire adult life, and I definitely rested on my laurels. I didn't believe my mum when she told me that I'd see the weight creep on by my late 40s. When it did, I was pretty shocked. I remember stepping on the scales and seeing 10st 5lb appear and being horrified because it was not like me at all. I was 48 and battling perimenopausal symptoms – that traditional weight gain around the middle, as well as feeling tired and achy with brain fog. At the time, I was spending £100 a month on a gym membership but going just once a week. I'd fallen out of the habit of a few sessions each week because, honestly, I just found it really boring. I felt like I was forcing myself to go, then begrudgingly doing the same routine of a few weights and the running machine before heading home. I know loads of other people feel like that as well. But the weight gain (and not being able to get into my size 10 jeans anymore) really spurred me on to take action, and I knew I had to do something different. So, within a couple of months of hitting 10st 5lb, I quit the gym. I tried a few at-home workout videos on YouTube and social media, in the hopes that one of those would get me back into the swing of things but none of it was inspirational or helping me to lose any weight at all. Then, in early January 2024, I got a marketing email from Joe Wicks, known as The Body Coach on social media. I've always liked and followed him and the email about his app popped up at the right time. I just thought, you know what, I'm going to try that. I downloaded it, put in my body measurements and uploaded photos of myself. It then let me choose whether I was a beginner, intermediate or advanced and then I began my first month-long 'cycle' that provides tailored workouts (I did four a week, on average) that ramp up in difficulty as you get fitter. Each cycle has five workouts to choose from and they're around 25 to 35 minutes. Outside of the cycles, there are endless other exercises to choose from. On those manic days, I would squeeze in a 10-minute core workout. I always exercised first thing before work (I'm a communications and engagement leader for global markets) as I found it easier to just get up and go. All I needed was an exercise mat and then two sets of dumbbells (I used 3kg for a light set and 5kg for a heavy set at the start, but now use 4kg for my light weights and 7kg for my heavy set). The app is £14.99 per month, so I saved so much money compared to my gym membership, and I could do it all from home – either in the garden or in my living room. The workout videos – strength, abs, HIIT, cardio, Pilates – were more motivational than any gym trip I'd ever done. Joe is very inspiring, it's like he's in the room with you and telling you to 'keep going, you can do it, come on' – it was like having your own personal trainer. It really helped me fall in love with exercise again. A lot of people rely on diet alone, but it doesn't tone you up, it doesn't give you a nicer body shape – your stomach can be a bit flabby. My transformation My body started heading in the right direction straight away. The changes were subtle – there was no losing half a stone in a week. I was seeing the pounds come off, week by week. My motto was consistency, consistency, consistency. I just focused one day at a time and kept my eye on the prize, focusing on my long-term health over quick fixes. You do a monthly check-in on the app, which encourages you to input your body measurements again and upload more photos. It was after month three that I could really see a massive difference in my appearance. I'd lost fat from my tummy and thighs and those areas had become toned from the muscle I had built up. By month four, I'd lost 1st 8lb (10kg) and by month five it was to 1st 12lb. Last June, six months in, I hit 8st 5lb, meaning I'd lost 2st. The whole process felt quite quick, considering it is a sustainable, committed weight loss and not a crash diet. One year on, I'm still at that same weight, though of course it fluctuates a few pounds either way. The mental benefits It was one thing seeing the number on the scale come down, but seeing my inside leg measurement reduce by a few centimetres, it's incredibly motivational. I lost 12cm from hips, 8cm from top of each leg and my waist is now 27 inches. I feel like I'm 20 years younger. It's still a bit of a 'pinch me' thing. I can't believe I'm in size six and eight clothes. I never thought I'd be this size. I've had to throw away loads of clothes – my old size 10 to 12 trousers are too big. I'm wearing things I'd never have considered before because I was too conscious of my stomach, like short skirts and pencil skirts. So many people have been asking me how I did it and found it really inspirational. As well as the physical benefits, I've noticed that mentally, I'm brighter, feel more resilient, stronger and better able to cope with stress. I'm also so much more confident. Not only in my body but in everything I do. When you're happier with how you look, you attack life in a different way. I'm so much more comfortable getting my photo taken. I'm going away to Barbados with my family for my 50th birthday and to Provence, France, with some friends this summer. I had a big party for my 50th where I didn't shy away from the camera. I even donned some boxing gloves at one point to have a joke gym-off with a friend who dressed up as Joe Wicks. My husband, Anthony, who is already quite healthy, couldn't believe how committed and disciplined I'd been. He was already working out but it definitely motivated him to squeeze in a few more weight sessions. It's inspiring for my two girls, nine and 10, as well, who join in with the workouts sometimes. My diet Of course, eating healthily was key to my results. The main changes I made was reducing my sugar and carb intake and cutting back on snacking – I stopped eating chocolate and sweets after dinner. Though I'd still snack on dark chocolate occasionally during the evening as a treat. Before losing weight, fruit juice and a sugary cereal was my breakfast go-to but I discovered that this is the worst thing I could have been doing. Just before I started losing weight, I listened to a podcast about how bad sugar was for our bodies and it had a real impact on me. I found out that my glass of fruit juice was causing a glucose spike and then a slump that was leaving me reaching around the cupboard for snacks to try and keep up with the sugar high that I was on. It meant I was on a glucose roller-coaster all day. So I swapped my breakfast to a healthy granola – a homemade coconut one from the Body Coach app that you make a big batch of and it lasts a month. I have it with Greek yogurt. Straight away, I noticed that I was no longer craving a sugary morning snack. People always say to cut out bread for weight-loss but I did my research and sourdough is one of the lower sugar breads, so I stuck with that – I love bread, so for lunch I'd have Jason's sourdough with sardines or a noodle soup. For dinner, I'd have something like a breaded chicken breast with vegetables, so I wouldn't have carbs in the evening and I still don't very often. I didn't cut out wine either, which some people are surprised about. I do enjoy a glass of wine in the evening to unwind and still enjoy it a few evenings a week. A lot of people don't think you can lose 2st and still drink wine but you can in moderation. I now tend to eat nuts instead of chocolate and sweets when I have wine, which also helps. On the whole, I pretty much stopped snacking between meals but if I got peckish, I'd have carrot and cucumber batons, malt loaf or dark chocolate with ginger in it. I didn't find it difficult to change my diet because I could see that it was working and that I was losing weight gradually. Every pound was a win and I knew the exercise wouldn't be working as well if I wasn't eating the right food. It was this combination of doing exercise four times a week religiously, reducing my snacking, sugar and carb intake and being informed about the changes in my body that was behind my body transformation. The icing on the cake of my weight loss journey was going to an exercise session in the park with Joe last summer. I took my young girls and bumped into him on the way there and told him my story. He was so supportive, hugged me and was saying to my kids 'doesn't mum look amazing!' It was a brilliant part of the journey meeting my guru who has helped me get here. So many women are using weight-loss drugs and other quick fixes to lose quite a lot of weight these days but it can easily go back on. I'm really proud that I didn't go down that route when loads of people do, particularly as they edge towards 50. I'm really passionate about sustainable, long-term health – not crazy diets. If someone asks if I've been dieting (I hate that word), the answer is no, this is just me now. This is a brilliant time of year to start working towards weight loss so you can get really trim for the summer. It's the best thing I've done. If you told me in January last year that I'd lose 2st, feel like I did in my 20s and fit into size eight jeans, from the comfort of my own home with a few dumbbells, I would never have believed you. What I ate before Breakfast Sugary cereal and fruit juice Lunch Unhealthy sandwiches Dinner Often takeaways and pre-packed foods Snacks Lots of chocolate and sweets after each meal Alcohol A few glasses of wine per week What I eat now Breakfast Coconut granola with Greek yogurt or Weetabix Lunch Jason's sourdough with sardines or a noodle soup Dinner Breaded chicken breast or fish with vegetables Snacks Dark chocolate, nuts and vegetable batons Alcohol A few glasses of wine per week - the same as before As told to Emily Craig
