WHILE thousands of people were nursing sore heads or sipping on their morning coffee at Glastonbury Festival, others started their Friday by getting a sweat on.

Fitness expert Joe Wicks, who is also known as The Body Coach, led around 2,000 people through a 25-minute HIIT (high intensity interval training) workout at The Gateway stage from 11.15am. 

Ahead of his PE With Joe Wicks performance, he told the PA news agency: “I’m excited. I love this.

“This is my favourite thing to do, live events, and especially bringing people of all different ages together for exercise so I’m hoping that we get everyone moving, get the old star jumps going and then they all leave with a a big smile on their face.”

The 37-year-old added: “Exercise, whatever mood you’re in, always boosts your mood, it helps you feel calmer, a little bit less stress.

“So hopefully everyone who is a bit hungover will walk away with a little bit more energy and everybody’s going to have an amazing day dancing around the festival.”

On stage, he revealed he approached the Worthy Farm festival about leading an exercise session after he bought himself tickets.

“I Instagrammed Glastonbury – didn’t get a response, I tweeted them – never got a response,” he recalled.

Somerset County Gazette: People came out in all attires for the event, wearing everything from sequinned skirts to kilts. People came out in all attires for the event, wearing everything from sequinned skirts to kilts. (Image: Tom Leese/PA)

“I found an email address and I said I’d love to do it and they found this stage and I thought: ‘What an amazing thing to say, I came to Glastonbury for the first time and led a workout.’

“So this is a world’s first – they’ve never done a HIIT workout here so we’re going to be the first to ever do it – it’s amazing.”

He started with a warm-up stretch with the crowds following his lead in doing squats, high knees and lunges.

They then performed a 25-minute, “family friendly” and “very accessible” exercise routine.

Writing on Twitter afterwards, Wicks said: “The world's first-ever HIIT workout at Glastonbury. So much fun.

“Over 2,000 people joined me for it this morning, Thanks for coming to take part. Have a great weekend everyone.”

The fitness coach gained thousands of followers during the pandemic with his PE With Joe YouTube videos that amassed millions of viewers worldwide.

Additional reporting by Naomi Clarke, PA Entertainment Reporter at Glastonbury.