Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Lockdown has for us... LOVE STORY RED CARPET
s life-long love of exercise. During kdown that has morphed into a ving business in the form of his new ning programme, Train Wright. has become an online sensation and atured across the BBC’S social media forms, with Olympic hero Mo Farah ong guests. But, speaking from the nasium of their Essex mansion, he als it is Michelle who is streets ad in certain areas of fitness. Michelle is extremely fit and definitely stronger than me in a few areas,” he says. “I’m not saying she can lift more weights, but she can do a plank longer, she’s better at squatting, and she’s got a cracking set of abs. Training is my life so to be able to do it as a career path is something I’ve always wanted to do.
“I just needed the time to do it and lockdown created that for me. For the first two weeks of lockdown I lost my motivation and was only training once or twice a week, so I said, ‘How can I motivate myself ?’ Then I thought that if I did a live workout on my Instagram, that will make me get up at the time I need to get up to train. So I arranged it. I woke up the next day unmotivated, but the minute I knew there was going to be people joining me, I had to do it.”
Initially a few thousand followers joined EX-TOWIE star Mark’s intense HIIT sessions with his brother Josh, but his daily workouts are now attracting 200,000 views, partly sparked by his tendency to train shirtless and also due to the cameos, including appearances from his Heart FM colleague Amanda Holden and boxing legend Tyson Fury.
“Amanda was amazing,” says Mark, who has been broadcasting his Heart radio show from his home. “She was great fun. She certainly broke out into a sweat but she still looked amazing, of course.”
World heavyweight champion Tyson Fury jumped at the chance to do a workout with Mark, who joined the Gypsy King in his dressing room after his Las Vegas battle against
Deontay Wilder in February.
Schoolboy boxer Mark dismisses suggestions he would get anywhere near Fury in the ring, despite being in the best shape of his life. “Could I land a punch on Tyson? Definitely not.”
One heavyweight Mark did connect with was A-lister Al Pacino at the launch of the Amazon Prime show Hunters.
“I’d interviewed him during the day with hundreds of other people then had to do the red carpet premiere that night,” says Mark. “Then as he was about to come over to me, he got dragged away to do a big cast photo, and he was like, ‘Oh, Mark, how are you doing?’
“Then he said to his publicist, ‘No. I’m not doing anything. Mark’s next. I’m going to be interviewed by him.’
“I was like, ‘S**t, he’s remembered my name from today,’ and we spoke for ages.
“When he finished the red carpet he shook my hand and said, ‘You’re really good at what you do and you’re an absolute gentleman. I’ll remember you.’ That was a big special moment for me.”
Follow TRAINWRIGHT on Instagram @wrighty_ and live at 9am on @bbcsport each Monday.