Kenny Chesney is revealing the real reason why he decided to get into “serious shape.”
“Once I agreed to the No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems Tour, I changed a lot about my life,” he recalled in his new Heart Life Music book, which dropped on Tuesday, November 4. “I wanted someone on the road with me to work out daily and get my body into serious shape.”
The singer went on to share that he had always “physically felt” music and wanted to “cover the entire stage” while headlining. “Some artists stand at the mic, and they’re awesome. But I wanted something physical, where every inch of that stage was mine,” he wrote.
Chesney then met Daniel Meng, who was the “perfect age to run away with the circus.” He joined Chesney on the road and began training him.
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“Daily workouts became as much mental as physical for me; as I was building my strength to do the show I imagined, the training also rewired my brain for endurance,” Chesney said of his transformation. “Committing to how hard these workouts could be gave me focus for everything else in front of me.”
Some of his workouts included a “Wheel of Death,” which was “a tiny bicycle wheel that I would use to do twenty-five-yard forward and back walking planks,” as well as “running three to five miles three times a week.” Chesney also built his stretch to do 300 push-ups in only 10 minutes.
“It was about making my body strong enough to be able to get onstage and give it all away,” he explained. “I wanted to throw all the energy and joy I felt inside the music into the crowd, to get them to feel the way I did up there.”
Meng then pushed Chesney to get even more “serious” about his lifestyle and encouraged him to “measure everything [he ate].” He recalled the trainer telling him, “Be super specific. Anything going into your body has a purpose. Nothing else. If there’s not a reason, you don’t go there.”
“My life became egg whites with vegetables and salsa for breakfast; a turkey sub on dry whole wheat with lettuce, tomato, and jalapeños for lunch; and a skinless chicken breast or broiled salmon with vegetables for dinner,” Chesney said. When it was time for him to “get the party on,” Chesney shared that he would drink coconut rum with sugar-free Red Bull.
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Chesney previously opened up about his workout routine in 2016 while chatting with GQ, sharing that at the time he didn’t “work out any more than one hour.”
“But that hour is intense,” he added. “There’s not a lot of bulls*** going on; we get it done and get out. I’m not the kind of person who stays in there for two hours a day — I got too much to do.”
His then work routine included heavy lifting and cardio.
“I wasn’t lifting heavy to try to gain size,” he explained. “I was trying to lean down and gain flexibility.”
