Joe Wicks wins Guinness World Record for YouTube views as ‘nation’s PE teacher’

1/22
The Weekender

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Joe Wicks has become a Guinness World Record holder after one of his online fitness classes was watched by nearly a million people.

On March 24, the Body Coach’s class was broadcast to 955,158 around the world – a record number of viewers for a workout live streamed on YouTube.

“I had no idea that when I went live on my YouTube workout on March 24, that we were actually setting a world record,” Wicks said.

“So thank you to everyone that tuned in – I’m so proud that this is our record, and we can remember that day as the moment we got the most viewers for a live work out.”

On Tuesday, the 33-year-old also celebrated reaching 2.2 million subscribers on the video sharing platform, as his at-home fitness videos continue to surge in popularity.

He said he had seen a “mind-blowing” increase in subscribers during the coronavirus lockdown – almost tripling his figure of 800,000 from three weeks ago.

The “nation’s PE teacher” shared a photo of himself posing with a golden YouTube trophy this afternoon, writing: “Look what just arrived. My gold play button.

“Three weeks ago I had only 800k subscribers and today I have 2.2 million which is just mind blowing.

“I’ve worked so hard on this since I shared my first workout video in 2011.”

He thanked his brother Nikki Wicks and “best mate” Dominic Seymour, who help him film, edit and share his workouts.

The Body Coach, who hosts online workouts for children at 9am each day, said that the “next stop” was to reach 10 million subscribers.

The fitness guru has previously said that he is donating the money raised from his online PE lessons to the NHS.

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