Life on tour is grueling (or so I’ve heard), but Taylor Swift could’ve fooled us with her seemingly effortless stamina throughout her 3-hour “The Eras Tour” show (complete with seamless outfit changes on stage, might I add). It got me wondering how she performs her way through 44 hits from her 10 studio albums without so much as breaking a sweat or popping one of the sequins off her red-and-sequined-snaked Reputation look. So naturally, I scoured the internet for every tidbit I could find about her wellness routine.
How does she sweat it out? What does she eat in a day? Is she just like us when it comes to self-care? Thanks to various sources including Swift’s interview as TIME’s 2023 Person of the Year and her trainer’s April 2024 interview with Vogue, we have some insight into how she prepped for the demands of her tour. Read on for a breakdown of T-Swift’s health and wellness standbys. Alexa, play The Tortured Poets Department.
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Confessing that she used to tour “like a frat guy” when she was younger, Swift didn’t mess around this time. “I knew this tour was harder than anything I’d ever done before by a long shot,” she admitted to Time. “I finally, for the very first time, physically prepared correctly.” Her trainer Kirk Myers, who prepared her for “The Eras Tour,” told Vogue that they approached her training “with the mindset of a professional athlete” where she has “off-season” and “on-season.” (Perhaps she got some inspo from Travis Kelce?)
When she’s not on tour (or her “off-season”), Swift works out up to six days a week for “sometimes two hours a day” to prepare for the grueling tour. Six months before the first show, Swift hit the ground (or the treadmill) running. “Every day I would run on the treadmill, singing the entire set list out loud,” she shared with Time. “Fast for fast songs, and a jog or a fast walk for slow songs.” So basically she was doing her own version of the Taylor Swift treadmill workout.
In addition to training her body for the tour, she also had to train her dance moves. For that, she enlisted the help of choreographer Mandy Moore and trained for three months before the first show. “I had three months of dance training because I wanted to get it in my bones,” Swift said. “I wanted to be so over-rehearsed that I could be silly with the fans, and not lose my train of thought.” When she’s on tour (or her “in-season”), each show was a three-hour grueling workout in itself, so she limited additional workouts to two times a week with a focus on conditioning. “Taylor trained during the entire tour,” Meyers said. “In-season training was more about maintenance, and so it was more like stability, mobility, biomechanics.”
“I wanted to be so over-rehearsed that I could be silly with the fans, and not lose my train of thought.”
Non-stop, back-to-back shows call for some major R&R, and Swift does it right. In between tour legs, she spends 24 hours resting and recharging. “I do not leave my bed except to get food and take it back to my bed and eat it there,” she explained to Time. “It’s a dream scenario. I can barely speak because I’ve been singing for three shows straight.” Swift knows the importance of carving out time to do nothing. She’s got millions of Swifties depending on her, after all. “I know I’m going on that stage whether I’m sick, injured, heartbroken, uncomfortable, or stressed,” she expressed. Although we may not take the stage and have adoring fans, we all deserve respite, whether from workouts or the daily grind. Take a breather—be it a day in bed like Taylor, a walk around the block, or DIY-ing a lymphatic massage.
Show biz is not without its fad diets, cleanses, and quick fixes, but don’t count Swift as part of that crowd. She takes a balanced approach to her diet. The only info my extensive research found on her diet was from 2010 (that’s Fearless era, y’all), but I think it’s still good advice: “…I try to keep it lighter, but it’s nothing too regimented or crazy,” Swift told WebMD in 2010. “I don’t like to create too many rules where I don’t need them. We know what’s good for us, thanks to common sense.” If you’re a Swiftie, you already know she has a sweet tooth. “I bake pumpkin bread for everyone I know and make ginger molasses cookies and hot chocolate and chai,” she told Bon Appétit in 2012 (more importantly known as the Red era). As for her go-to drinks? Skinny vanilla lattes on weekdays and PSLs on weekends. “The point is I’m never cutting out what I love,” Swift informed WebMD.
One exception to her balance-first and no-restriction mentality: Swift cut out alcohol in preparation for “The Eras Tour.” “I was really disciplined about drinking,” she told Time. “I stopped drinking for a couple of months before the show except for on Grammy night. Doing that show with a hangover…I don’t want to know that world.” (P.S. If you don’t want to cut alcohol completely like Swift, try these simple alternatives).
From interviews in 2010 to her most recent in 2023, it seems Swift has always turned to writing and creating art as key mental health practices. “From a young age, any time I would feel pain I would think, ‘It’s OK, I can write about this after school,’” Swift said in 2010. “As a young kid, I learned to process my emotions by writing.” Swift was onto something; putting pen to paper has benefits like reducing stress, creating space from negative thoughts, and deepening self-discovery.
Swift takes to her songwriting and music to process her feels: “Anytime something hurts, like rejection or sadness or loneliness, or I feel joy or I fall in love, I ask myself, ‘Can I write a song about this so I know how I feel?’” she continued in 2010. Even if your journal entries about your feelings don’t become a platinum hit, journaling can help process emotions. Think of it like a therapy session with yourself. “There is one thing I’ve learned: My response to anything that happens, good or bad, is to keep making things. Keep making art,” she conveyed to Time in 2023.
Another key mental health practice is to set boundaries, not stress about things that are out of control, and prioritize joy. “Over the years, I’ve learned I don’t have the time or bandwidth to get pressed about things that don’t matter,” Swift voiced. “Yes, if I go out to dinner, there’s going to be a whole chaotic situation outside the restaurant. But I still want to go to dinner with my friends.” The moral of her story? “Life is short. Have adventures.” Enough said.
“Yes, if I go out to dinner, there’s going to be a whole chaotic situation outside the restaurant. But I still want to go to dinner with my friends. Life is short. Have adventures.”
In her 2010 interview with WebMD, Swift didn’t sugarcoat life on tour: riding hours on a bus, giving it her all on stage, and getting less sleep can feel draining. Her key to staying balanced through it all is following a comforting routine and packing certain travel essentials. Her first order of business when settling into her hotel room is unpacking. “I do it everywhere I go,” Swift said. “I really like the way it feels to have my clothes put away in drawers and my shoes in the closet.” Swift also shared she brings candles to every destination. Even though she shared this routine back in 2010 when we were all blasting “Forever & Always” (not Taylor’s version) from our iPods, Swift is a self-care queen through and through, and we like to think she’s putting in the same effort to take care of herself during her “The Eras Tour” today.
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