Mr Motivator, star of Truck Festival, gets us moving on lockdown

The Jamaican fitness fanatic, who made his name broadcasting uplifting workouts on breakfast TV show GMTV in the 90s, has, in recent years, found a new younger fanbase among the crowds at Truck Feastival in Steventon, Camp Bestival, and the much-missed Common People Oxford festival, which ran for three years in South Park.

And while we are unable to join his mass warm-ups while on lockdown, a whole new audience are ‘feeling the burn’ and staying in shape with the workout wizard.

Mr Motivator, real name Derrick Evans, is one of our lockdown heroes, helping us stay healthy in our homes with a daily live-streamed workout, called the Daily Dozen, which goes out at noon on Twitter and YouTube.

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In what’s a scary and strange time for everyone, the 67 year-old fitness freak says: “We’re creatures of habit, and they say for something to become a habit we have to do it 21 times, so I think after 21 days of doing this, people may start easing up a little bit and feeling better about everything.”

So what’s his advice for staying positive and healthy amid the pandemic?

1. Practise gratitude

“The first thing is recognising where we are. For a long time we tried to say, ‘Let’s ignore it for a while’. But I think we now need to find a way of relieving the stress that’s been brought on by our situation.

“That means you’ve got to focus on the good things in your life. Start every day by just looking around or looking in the mirror and thinking of five or six reasons why you should be grateful. They can be simple things like just having a choice: what am I going to have for breakfast? Or will I walk out into the garden or not? Lots of people don’t have that choice, so that’s a blessing.

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“And the other things we should think about more are: you can see, you can hear, you’ve got someone who loves you. And all of a sudden, that little black dot on the blotting paper doesn’t look too important.”

2. Find your own escape

“If you’ve not spent time at home during the day, and now you’ve got everybody around you, your own space becomes an issue. So you need to find a place you can escape to.

“It could be reading a book or it could be doing something you’ve actually always wanted to do, but never got around to. That gives you time out, because with the pressure of you all being in this box together, it’s important that you do think about moments like that.”

3. Play uplifting music

“Put music on in every single room of the house. Either the same music, or if the old man likes his head banging music, he can put his music on in one room and you can put Barry White on in your room.

“The faster the music is, the better. Music is a great leveller - if it’s dance music, you automatically want to dance.”

4. Resist the urge to spend all day in slippers

“Put your trainers on and walk around the house. Don’t walk around barefooted, or in slippers or socks.

“And because you’ve got your trainers on, psychologically you’re starting to think about movement – you’ve got your music on, you’ve got your trainers on, and it makes you want to move.”

5. Check your posture

“Because we’re all going to be sitting down a lot more; at the computer, watching television, on the couch or chair.

“Your reflection in the mirror is your friend! If there’s a mirror nearby, check your posture, and you’ll probably find you’re rounding your shoulders, or you’re lounging really badly. So set your alarm clock, your Fitbit, your phone to go off every 45 minutes, or 20 or 30 minutes – that is a reminder to check your posture.

“What you do is imagine there’s an orange between your shoulder blades, and you gently squeeze out the juice of that orange, and you hold that for four seconds. Then you release it, and do it again. It’s making you sit up straighter.”

6. Move – in any way you can

“When it comes to being active, you can do so much from sitting down. You can march on the spot, you can pretend you’re shooting a basketball into a hoop, you can work your pelvic floor muscles.

“You can get the kids involved by doing all kinds of crazy things with their arms. You can get them to sit down in front of you and say, ‘What’s your favourite word?’ and get them to spell it with their arms.

“Go and kick a football in the garden, go for a walk, the whole family can do it. Just keep away from other people whilst you’re doing that.”

• See Mr Motivator at Truck Festival, Steventon, near Didcot, from July 31-August 2