Taylor Swift has revealed the insane workout regimen that helped her prepare for her Eras Tour – from running on a treadmill while singing to quitting all alcohol.
The 33-year-old singer’s impressive, three-hour-15-minute concert sees her perform a whopping 44 songs from her decade-long career while undergoing a multitude of costume changes.
Now, the Cruel Summer songstress has opened up about the extreme measures that she took to ensure that she would be in tip top shape for the tour, while speaking to Time magazine.
‘I knew this tour was harder than anything I’d ever done before by a long shot,’ she told the publication, who has named her 2023’s Person of the Year.
Taylor explained that she started training six months before the tour kicked off at a New York City-based gym called Dogpound – a ‘state-of-the-art’ facility ‘offering bespoke team, private training, lifestyle advice,’ according to its website.
She recalled performing her entire setlist while running on a treadmill, so that she would be ready to belt out her hits while moving around the stage.
‘Every day I would run on the treadmill, singing the entire set list out loud,’ she continued. ‘Fast for fast songs, and a jog or a fast walk for slow songs.’
She also incorporated ‘strength, conditioning, and weights.’
Three months before the tour, Taylor also began working relentlessly with choreographer Mandy Moore, to learn the dance moves.
Mandy was recommended to her by her pal Emma Stone. Emma had previously worked with Mandy on the musical La La Land.
The pop star admitted, ‘Learning choreography is not my strong suit. I had three months of dance training, because I wanted to get it in my bones.
‘I wanted to be so over-rehearsed that I could be silly with the fans, and not lose my train of thought.’
The musician told the publication that in the past, she lived ‘like a frat guy’ on the road, but this time was different.
She explained that she cut out alcohol completely ahead of the tour, adding, ‘Doing that show with a hangover… I don’t want to know that world.’
While reflecting on the impressive length of her show, Taylor said that she wanted to give her fans something special since she knew how hard they had to work to get there.
When the Eras Tour tickets first went on sale last year – millions failed to get their hands on a ticket, which lead to a highly-publicized war between Swifties and the company that sold them, Ticketmaster.
‘They had to work really hard to get the tickets,’ Taylor noted. ‘I wanted to play a show that was longer than they ever thought it would be, because that makes me feel good leaving the stadium.’
And putting on the immense performance certainly takes a toll on Taylor. She usually performs two or three shows in a row which is followed by a bunch of days off before the next set of concerts.
She admitted that she needs a full day to recover after she finishes a run of shows, and that she can ‘barely speak’ or walk afterwards.
‘I do not leave my bed except to get food and take it back to my bed and eat it there [for the first day after the shows],’ she revealed.
‘It’s a dream scenario. I can barely speak because I’ve been singing for three shows straight. Every time I take a step my feet go crunch, crunch, crunch from dancing in heels.’
But no matter how sore she is, Taylor vowed that nothing will keep her from getting back on the stage when the next concert comes.
‘I know I’m going on that stage whether I’m sick, injured, heartbroken, uncomfortable, or stressed,’ she added.
‘That’s part of my identity as a human being now. If someone buys a ticket to my show, I’m going to play it unless we have some sort of force majeure.’
In the end, she said she hopes that revisiting her old ‘eras’ for the concert will encourage others to ‘celebrate who they are now, where they’re going, and where they’ve been.’
‘Every part of you that you’ve ever been, every phase you’ve ever gone through, was you working it out in that moment with the information you had available to you at the time,’ she concluded.
‘There’s a lot that I look back at like, “Wow, a couple years ago I might have cringed at this.”
‘You should celebrate who you are now, where you’re going, and where you’ve been.’
