Everyone’s favourite straight-talking personal trainer James Smith has unravelled his long-term beef with Joe Wicks.
Smith, who has been referred to as the Gordon Ramsay of the fitness world for his no-holds-barred approach, has been a frequent critic of The Body Coach‘s methods.
In fact, he has talked at length in the past about how he doesn’t even see him as a personal trainer, instead labelling him as a cook.
Wicks, Whose Lean in 15: 15-minute meals was a best-seller in 2015, is best known for his High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) in his workouts.
And Smith admitted that was what sparked his initial outburst at the revered social media personality. Speaking on his YouTube channel, he said: “Any of you that have been following me for a while will know that Joe Wicks and I have had beef for quite some time.
“So, where does this beef originate from? I’ll be honest, rewind to 2015 I’m a personal trainer in a gym doing 40 hours of personal training a week and I see some guy with curly hair jumping around doing jumping jacks calling it training.
“And then he eludes to the fact he’s making £1m a f*cking month. I’m all about people being successful and making loads of money, but this is my problem. Maybe it’s not with Joe, it’s with HIIT training itself.”
He added: “Any coach in the world can make you do 100 burpees and make you tired. Any coach in the world can get you to jump around your front room like a c*** and get you sweating everywhere. That’s not training, that’s exercising.”
Smith said HIIT training is only as popular as it is because of the ease in which is can be mass marketed and sold, adding that a balanced resistance programme with set goals offers much more benefit to its users.
The 33-year-old admitted Wicks was the ‘Bane to his Batman’ as he was cutting his teeth in the fitness industry, and revealed he sent an email to Wicks explaining his position.
He continued: “Joe if you’re watching this I probably owe you an apology. But it’s like having beef with rappers, when you go at each other it benefits both sides. And I suppose, all in all, my problem was with HIIT training, and not so much you… My biggest issue with all of that is that when people are sold exercise under the facade of being training they tend to blame themselves when it doesn’t work out, which it won’t.
“And I think that we should be realistic and understand the majority of times people fail a training or dieting regime it is not the fault of the person, but the fault of the coach who put this neatly packaged dream together, and sold it as the illusion of being the best thing since sliced bread.”
