My new best friend, Joe the body coach

MAKING new friends hasn’t been easy of late, but some of us have achieved the impossible, mainly thanks to our computer or phone screens. And it seems many of us who have managed to engage with others have been inviting the same bloke into our living rooms.

He’s a nice chap, but you can end up both loving and hating him at the same time. On the one hand, you can find yourself shouting. “For God’s sake, give it a rest!” Minutes later you’re saying: “That was great! Thanks mate. You’ll come around so we can do it again tomorrow, won’t you?”

Joe doesn’t seem to mind whether you are hurling abuse at him, or patting him on the back. He’s always jovial – and he’s there to help and support you, rather than mess up your life. And he is a very popular lad. I know that because I’ve just Googled the name Joe Wicks and there are over a million people who invite him into their homes each day.

Joe Wicks, The Body Coach. What would we do without him? Indeed, how did any of us survive without him? I only came across Joe a fortnight ago and already he’s made a big difference to my life. I am fitter, more lithe and supple – I bend more easily and feel sort of more refreshed and up for stuff.

For a week, I very much did not like his daily visit. Back then it was more of a case of: “Mate, can you take your cheeky and over-familiar Thames accent out of my valley and stick up Clapham Common where the sun don’t shine.”

But, with every knee-jerk, singlearm chest-press and press-up, something inside the lazy stiff-upper-lip old-style Hesp began to disappear.

After a week it was: “Hi Joe - what’s it going to be today? The 10-minute work-out for regular guys, or the 15-minute for old farts? Better go with the latter, I think.”

After a fortnight I’m doing two 20-minute daily sessions for old codgers aged 60-plus. Which, of course, is me.

And Joe is always there, being gently persuasive and positive. “Come on… You know it makes sense! You’re going to feel better for this…

Only six more exercises to go!”

Groaning with pain, you look across at your iPad screen and wail: “No, please Joe. Can’t we have rest? How about if I only do half this session today and double up tomorrow?”

But Joe smiles and keeps going – never out of breath, sweating or looking tired. He genuinely wants to take you with him down the long bumpy Yellow Brick Road that leads over the horizon to a place called Physical Perfection.

Not that there’s any chance of physical perfection when you’ve reached my age. That beer belly you’ve taken so long developing cries out in protest, as does every major joint in your body, not to mention a few minor ones you never knew you had, along with ribs and other non-moving parts that have no right to protest.

“Protest” is not Joe-speak. The word “slumping” is not in Mr Wicks’ vocabulary and neither, I’ll bet, is that soft and friendly term “sofa”. However, the magic of this Internet fitness trainer is that you don’t mind his shortcomings. If he was a sergeant-major type barking you through the exercise sessions, you’d have kicked him out long ago. But we like Joe. We want to keep up with him and do what he says. For he is Encouraging with a capital E.

To the extent that if The Body Coach ever wanted to change his title to The Prime Minister, we’d all put a cross by his name.

“Come on… Just a bit more. A few more weeks and lockdown will be over. Come on now! Keep going!” We’d all be there gawping breathlessly at our virtual friend, panting: “OK Joe…. Seeing it’s you. We’d never want to let you down. We’ll keep going until the timer on the iPad turns red.”

What a weird world. If anyone had ever said to me: “There will come a time when the person you’ll see most each day will be a fitness coach on a tiny screen”… I’d have been alarmed.

I may have asked: “Why? Will it be because I’ve been sent to prison for some heinous crime and I’m in solitary confinement?” “No,” the sage might say. “It’ll be more a case of everyone everywhere being given the same prison sentence at the same time.”

Bring on Joe Wicks. The only person or thing in our house who seems bemused by his daily appearance is the dog. He enters the room where I’m doing star-jumps or whatever and assumes a look that seems to say: “OK Hesp, now I know you have gone completely and utterly mad!”

My only problem today is I can’t exercise with Joe because my iPad screen is showing the hilarious Handforth Parish Council meeting which has gone viral. I’m bent double, not with exercise pain, but with laughter. Partly because, in my years as a reporter, I saw much worse behaviour while covering parish council meetings. But those are stories for another day. Right now I’ve 50 more press-ups to do.

‘If Joe Wicks ever wanted to be prime minister we’d all put a cross by his name’