Joe Wicks: ‘Exercise and ice-baths make me a better, calmer dad’

On the day we speak over Zoom, Joe Wicks is feeling good. In most people’s eyes, he is the hero who helped to get the nation’s children fit and raise half a million pounds for the NHS. And not much has changed there: he remains enormously passionate about the power a daily workout has to improve our mental health. But Wicks, 34, also thrives on social interaction and says the gradual reopening of society is giving his mood a much-needed boost.

“I’m excited about the prospect of things opening up, and being able to travel again. As humans, we need to interact because, at the end of the day, we’re social creatures. I'm all about listening to the experts and getting back together with our friends and family when the time’s right,” he says.

PE with Joe became a staple of our morning routines throughout lockdown, and the sessions accumulated an enormous 100 million views on YouTube in the past year. Now, he has turned his attention to season two of the Joe Wicks podcast, where he asks a series of guests, including Sir Tom Jones and Russell Brand, to share their mental health tips for when life gets challenging.

This couldn’t come at a better time for a nation wearied by lockdown restrictions: a survey conducted by Mind last year found that 65 per cent of adults with a pre-existing mental health problem said it had become worse during lockdown, with this figure jumping to 75 per cent among those aged 13-24.

Indeed, Wicks himself wasn’t immune to the mental strain of lockdown. When the third set of restrictions were announced in January, he went live on Instagram and cried to his 4.1 million followers. “I felt so sad that we were back in this position again, and for the families who were losing their jobs or stuck inside tiny houses. I didn’t plan on going live, but opening up on social media really helped a lot of other people,” he says. Wickes is a firm believer in speaking honestly on social media, to show that life isn’t a “perfect facade”, and makes a conscious effort to share his bad days, where he eats junk food or skips a workout.

With a high-profile social media presence comes responsibility. Wicks makes an effort to reply to as many of his follower's messages as he can, a process he describes as “addictive, amazing, emotional and energising” all in one. He says he goes through phases where he feels "burnt out" by the need to be always-on, but resolves it by having a “blackout day” away from his phone: “I’ll say: ‘I’m turning my phone off from 11am Saturday until 11am the next morning.’ And that 24 hours is a whole new dimension of presence.”

We are speaking a few days after the pandemic reached crisis levels in India, news which Wicks found difficult to process. “It’s disheartening because it makes you realise that we’re not out of it. We’re opening up restaurants here, but there are people losing their lives every day. In my head, that’s a big step backwards,” he says.

We can’t ignore what we read, he says, but there are ways we can draw ourselves back to the present: “You’ve got to work out how much media you need to consume. Opening Twitter or BBC news first thing in the morning will draw you in, but you know it’s going to be negative. Instead, try starting the day with a workout or meditation before you read the news.”

In April last year, Wicks tweeted that he was trying to do 20 minutes of meditation a day. But one year on, he says he has slightly dropped the habit as he finds it “hard to sit still.” Instead, he practises mindfulness by playing the guitar and taking excursions on his beloved motorbike. Although Wicks says he has never struggled to sleep, he’s also found solace in listening to sleepcasts on the Headspace app – bedtime stories for adults read by celebrities including Harry Styles and Matthew McConaughey.

Yet there is one thing that, above all, never fails to make Wicks feel better: exercise. I ask him how he always looks so sprightly in his workout videos; does he wake up raring to go every day?

“I’m not always motivated, but I am always disciplined,” he says. “I have quite a good routine of getting up and just doing it, even if it’s only for 20 minutes. I go on a walk, do a HIIT workout, jump on the peloton, or get in the ice bath because I know that it’s going to transform my day.” Walking, he says, is one of the lockdown habits that he hopes to continue once all the restrictions are lifted: “I used to find it so boring, but I think getting out in nature is a wonderful way to calm yourself down.”

If you’re feeling sluggish and unmotivated, he says it helps to reframe how you think about workouts. “It’s not about fat loss, or conforming to a certain body type. Do it for your mindset, and your energy. When you convince someone to exercise for that reason, they can adhere to it,” he says.

But perhaps the biggest factor driving Wicks to exercise is the belief it makes him a better parent to his two children, Indie and Marley. “If I don’t eat well, or exercise, I’m grumpy. Exercise neutralises everything else that is going on in my brain, so when I go down into a chaotic living room I’m a chilled, calm dad,” he says. He encourages his wife Rosie, 30, to do the same, although he says she draws the line with ice baths. “She did it for 15 seconds once and never got back in,” he laughs.

For Wicks, a two to five-minute ice bath every other day is a meditative experience. “It’s incredible for blood circulation, mental health and depression. It gives me mental alertness, and makes me feel good that I’ve conquered the ice,” he says.

He may not be able to convince everyone to plunge into a freezing tub of ice (myself included), but Wicks is unrivalled in his ability to get the nation moving. And, for most of us, this is enough.

The Joe Wicks Podcast is available from Monday May 10 on BBC Sounds