The spectral element method (SEM) combines the geometrical flexibility of the finite element method with the accuracy of spectral methods, keeping the exponential decay of the error as the polynomial order increases, making it an ideal method for complex flow studies with a high requirement on accuracy. However, limited to hexahedral elements (for efficiency reasons), meshing of complex geometries is a costly, time-consuming task. Immersed boundary (IB) methods have proven to be a suitable tool for complex engineering applications for low-order, cartesian based finite volume methods. Extending IB to high- order methods like SEM is a none-trivial task due to the different solution method, and the none-equidistant grids. We present our work on developing an immersed boundary method suitable for high-fidelity tur- bulent flow simulations with complex geometries. The proposed method is based on a continuous forcing approach with a Lagrangian marker-particle based representation of the immersed ge- ometry. We develop a one-sided forcing IB formulation using the weighted inverse distance interpolation kernels, this enables the immersed boundary method to accurately represent zero-thickness bodies with a sharp interface on coarse meshes. A detailed description of the method is given, together with implementation details and validation results from the high- order spectral element flow solver Neko.