Nick Knowles' run of painful health battles as he pulls out of Strictly Come Dancing

Long Covid, a ruptured artery and a couple of nasty injuries have made DIY SOS action man Nick Knowles' life particularly hard in recent years

Nick Knowles has suffered a bitter blow after being forced to pull out of Strictly this weekend after sustaining an injury during rehearsal. The DIY SOS presenter reportedly fell over during during a dress rehearsal for Saturday's Strictly Come Dancing live show and is now said to be on crutches.

It's just the latest in a series of health woes for Nick. His run of bad luck began in 2014, when a simple sneeze ruptured an artery in his sinus.

Nick put the problem put down to his stressful lifestyle. He said at the time: "I was on the way to doing to myself what my father had done to himself. So I went to a retreat in Thailand. I took up yoga, became vegan, and they've worked well for me."

He's picked up numerous injuries from daredevil TV stunts, the TV host previously told The Sun how he had cheated death in a gyrocopter crash whilst flying over Mount Etna during a shoot for Amazing Railway Adventures, and added: "Seventeen, eighteen years ago I fell out of a truck in Africa and had to be airlifted out."

He added: "Swimming in the arctic circle, jumping in the ice - I love all that stuff, it makes you feel alive.

But Nick's adrenaline-junkie lifestyle has left its mark: "My shoulders, neck, back, knees, everything is knackered because of accidents over the years," he says, adding that he considers his various injuries "a badge of honour".

Like many others, he had a hard time bouncing back from a nasty bout of Covid. He says he still experiences chest pains, fatigue and breathlessness after catching the virus early on in the the pandemic. "I was literally wiped out," he says.

"I had just no energy and felt like I was operating on about 50 to 60 percent of my normal amount of energy and getting out of breath easily. I had about a year where I was heavily overweight but I had to be gentle with myself when I had the long Covid because it's a viral thing and you can't just fight against it."

His symptoms lasted 10 months, but he didn't tell anyone at the time: "I didn't want to tell anyone because I thought I wouldn't get a booking for work," he admitted. "I kept it to myself."

And clearly, Nick's various battle-scars are taking longer to heal. His Strictly Come Dancing run was thrown into doubt, when he injured his bicep during an attempt to change a car tyre, casting some uncertainty over his stint in the competition.

He was left with his arm in a sling, and it wasn't until the last minute that he was confirmed to be fit enough to take to the dance floor with partner Luba Mushtuk.

Nick has described training for the show as one of the "toughest" things he's ever had to do, and this latest setback will be particularly hard for the 62-year-old action man to take.