Coronavirus: The Body Coach Joe Wicks details mental health struggles amid lockdown

Joe Wicks is calling on the public to keep exercising during lockdown to improve mental health

Fitness sensation Joe Wicks has candidly discussed feeling down and stressed during the coronavirus lockdown.

The Body Coach star, 33, who has been running a daily exercise class for children during school closures, said he had a suffered a tough day on Tuesday.

Wicks, who has ambitions to become the nations PE teacher, revealed it was the first time he had struggled with his mental health since the UK was put on virtual lockdown last week.

Posting to social media platform Instagram, Wicks wrote: “I wanted to talk a bit about mental health, today for the first time through this whole thing I’ve found things quite difficult.

“I’ve been down and stressed and frustrated with being indoors, I went out with Indie for an hour and I got my energy and I feel calm but then you come back indoors into your living room and it just shrinks again.”

Wicks went on to add that he doesn’t feel mentally stronger than anyone else and described the difficulties of being a parent while children are off school.

He added: “Indie’s been playing up and she’s a bit confused by it all, I want to talk about how just because I love my fitness I’m not invincible or superhuman.”

Wicks explained that he had a “rough” start to the day after waking up in the middle of the night with sleep paralysis.

“So I was feeling pretty low but I’ve just got up and did a work out,” Wicks explained.

“Obviously because of this [pointed to his broken wrist] I can’t do what I think of as a proper work out, but I’ve done a power walk and some squats and I’m feeling much better.

He added: “So if you’re feeling low, anxious or depressed it’s completely normal and everyone is feeling it on some level. With kids it heightens it, there’s screaming and crying and it is intense.

“But after exercise I instantly feel better. You can change your mental state by changing your physiological state. Those mental lows suddenly just fade away.”

Earlier this week Wicks vowed to keep his hugely popular classes online during the pandemic so that he could reach the widest possible audience.

Appearing on BBC Radio 2, he said: “I have decided I want to stay on YouTube because I want [the classes] to have a global reach.

“I don’t want to be exclusive to one place. I have been blown away by the response.”

Last week, the father-of-two announced that all advertising revenue generated from the classes would be donated to help the NHS during the coronavirus crisis.