Joe Wicks reveals he’s raised nearly £100,000 for the NHS with YouTube ‘PE teacher’ videos
JOE Wicks has revealed he’s raised nearly £100k for the NHS with his daily PE lessons on YouTube.
The fitness guru is donating “every single penny” of the advertising revenue generated from the workouts to the NHS.
The dad of two has been hosting daily keep fit sessions on his YouTube channel at 9am to keep children and adults active during lockdown.
Taking to Instagram, he shared: “I’m super happy to announce that as a global community training together with #pewithjoe we have raised an incredible £91,256.38 for the @nhscharitiestogether fund.”
“This is every penny so far raised from the 20 workouts we have done together.
“Thank you so much for taking part and helping raise all this money for a cause which I feel we can all be proud of.
“The great news is we can grow this number even bigger each week by coming back and tuning in again. Will I see you tomorrow at 9am? To all the NHS staff we LOVE and appreciate you.”
Taking to his Instagram Stories, he added: “Thank you with all my heart for generating this and helping us raise money. It’s going to get bigger, the numbers are going to grow.
“The more workouts we do together over the next month it’s going to get a bigger number and we can donate even more. So thank you so much.”
Last week, Joe opened up about his “chaotic” childhood in an interview with The Sun.
His roofer father Gary was a drug addict, while his mother Raquela was “on the social” and brought the kids up on unhealthy food.
“My diet was absolutely shocking,” he said. “When you grow up in a council estate and there’s not a lot of money about, there’s a lot of meal deals, frozen pies, crispy pancakes, potato waffles, fish fingers and a lot of chocolate.”
So he’s keen to keep his PE lessons free to everyone.
He told the BBC last month that he was offered to do his PE lessons on television, but decided to stick to YouTube so everyone could have access.
However, the fitness mogul opened up about the emotional toll the lockdown has taken on him.
He said: “I’ve been pulled in every direction because I want to reach as many people. I am not superhuman, I have days where I wake up feeling low and flat but I always use exercise to lift my mood.
“That’s what this workout at 9am is going to do. Doesn’t matter if you’re fit, superset or unfit, you’re going to move your body, get your heart pumping and you’re going to leave feeling more optimistic.
“That’s what we need more than ever. There are parents and families, for the first time ever getting up and exercising.”