While the Zac Brown Band is crisscrossing America on the group’s current tour, they bring with them a tractor trailer that houses an Iron Paradise gym, outfitted with machines, free weights and more.
In a new feature for Men’s Health, Brown shared his fitness journey that led to him being his healthiest ever at age 44. Brown explained that much has changed since his early days on the road, when he says the band’s workout regimen consisted of “a bottle of Jäger before the show, during the show, and after the show.”
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“One thing I noticed, just bouncing down the road on a bus for days and days in a row, you get hunched over,” he 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.”
He says it was music superstar Bruce Springsteen who inspired his fitness transformation, with a piece of simple advice.
“When I met Springsteen, I said, ‘Tell me something that’s helped you to stay feeling good.’ 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.’”
These days, Brown said that he lifts weights at least five days per week, along with an hour of cardio, such as hiking or paddleboarding.
He noted that regular exercise not only benefits him physically, but mentally.
“If I go four or five days without working out, everything just seems to be a little darker than it should be,” he told the outlet. “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.”
Ultimately, Brown hopes to continue to be healthy decades from now.
“I want to be running up and down mountains when I’m 70 years old. 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 is also gearing up for the Sept. 30 release of the deluxe edition of their The Comeback album, and recently released a collaboration with Cody Johnson titled “Wild Palomino.”
