Desert Island Discs

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Castaway guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

Eight tracks, a book and a luxury: what would you take to a desert island? Guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

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Desert Island Discs: Joe Wicks, fitness trainer and author

Joe Wicks, fitness trainer and author

BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Joe Wicks, fitness trainer and author

Joe Wicks, fitness coach, shares the soundtrack of his life with Lauren Laverne.

Joe Wicks, fitness coach, chooses the eight tracks, book and luxury item which he would want to take with him if cast away to a desert island. With Lauren Laverne.

Joe Wicks, professionally known as The Body Coach, is a fitness and nutrition coach. Since the lockdown, he has been running daily free virtual PE lessons for children and adults stuck at home. In March he became a Guinness World Record holder after his second PE with Joe class was watched by 955,158 people around the world, a record number of viewers for a live streamed YouTube workout.  Getting children to be more active has been a long-held ambition and in 2019 he went on a tour of fifteen schools around the UK delivering High Intensity Interval Training workouts as part of his mission to get school children working out for 15 minutes a day.

Born in 1985, Joe’s mother was nineteen when she gave birth to him while his father was in and out of his life with a heroin addiction. He was a hyperactive child whose salvation at school was channelling his excess energy into PE lessons.

With a Sports Science degree under his belt, he briefly became a teaching assistant himself, but found it wasn’t for him and set himself up as a personal trainer instead, preaching the importance of combining training with the right nutrition. With the advent of the video function on Instagram, he started posting free 15-second recipes using the name The Body Coach, building up a following of first hundreds, then thousands and eventually millions.

His phenomenally successful business began when he created a commercial 90-day plan with workouts and meals. He published Lean in 15 in 2015 which became the bestselling non-fiction book of the year, and he has since written eight further cook books.

He married his wife, Rosie, in 2019 and the couple have two children, Indie and Marley.

DISC ONE: Shotgun by George Ezra  
DISC TWO: Bright Side of the Road by Van Morrison
DISC THREE: Three Little Birds by Bob Marley And The Wailers   
DISC FOUR: When You Were Young by The Killers   
DISC FIVE: Thunder Road by Bruce Springsteen 
DISC SIX: River by Leon Bridges
DISC SEVEN: Nothing Can Change This Love by Sam Cooke
DISC EIGHT: You’re Welcome by Dwayne Johnson 
 
BOOK CHOICE:  Lord of the Flies by William Golding
LUXURY ITEM:  An acoustic guitar
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: River by Leon Bridges

Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer:  Cathy Drysdale

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Joe Wicks, fitness trainer and author

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