Zac Brown Reveals Fitness Advice He Got From Bruce Springsteen

Zac Brown finds time to work out while he’s on the road. The “Out in the Middle” singer is as healthy as ever, and it’s partly because he takes an Iron Paradise gym with him everywhere he goes. There was a time that he wasn’t doing it this way. He said his old way involved “a bottle of Jager before the show, during the show and after the show.”

But things changed, he tells Men’s Health.

“One thing I noticed, just bouncing down the road on a bus for days and days in a row, you get hunched over,” Zac Brown said. “I had L5 issues, a bulging disc and I couldn’t move my leg. I had to have a surgery last year to take some of the trash out.”

It was the Boss himself that inspired Zac Brown to change his routine. Bruce Springsteen gave him some advice that set him on his new path.

“When I met Springsteen, I said, ‘Tell me something that’s helped you to stay feeling good,’” he recalls. “He was like, ‘Man, you need to sweat for an hour a day. I don’t care what you do. Doesn’t matter. You need to sweat for an hour a day.’ I was like, ‘You’re the Boss. Let’s do it.’”

Zac Brown says that these days, he’s lifting weights at least five days a week. He also does an hour of cardio. Sometimes that’s hiking; sometimes it’s paddleboarding. The active lifestyle doesn’t just benefit him physically, but also mentally.

Zac Brown Works Out on the Road

“If I go four or five days without working out, everything just seems to be a little darker than it should be,” he said. “Your perception of things is really all that you have. I can tell some days when I wake up if I’m a little off. Those are the days I need to push myself to go and do it. You don’t want to, but that’s what pulls you out of that funk, getting to sweat.”

Zac Brown hopes that he can be active for a long time.

“I want to be running up and down mountains when I’m 70-years-old,” he said. “I don’t want to be alcoholic, red-faced, hunched over, can’t move. You start falling apart when you don’t take care of it. Whatever makes me feel the best so I can be the best for my kids and my people, that’s the goal for me. As I get older, the more I want to be able to get out and adventure, dive deeper, go out into the woods. That’s a huge motivator for me. I want to be a ripped old dude.”

Zac Brown Band remains on tour for most of 2022. Check out his tour dates and get ticket information at his website.