DAN REYNOLDS IS running for his life. You wouldn’t know it from his leisurely pace.
Striding along on an Assault Runner treadmill at a storefront gym on the Pacific Coast Highway, the six foot four, 205-pound singer looks calm and relaxed. To a guy who works out six days a week, moves like Jagger two hours a night to capacity crowds, and dunks basketballs for goofs, today’s run (a warmup for an intense weights session that will rock his legs, shoulders, and stamina) barely registers as a workout.
Still, for the 35-year-old musician, it’s a lifesaver. Reynolds has been dogged by chronic inflammation. In his early twenties, he developed ulcerative colitis, which threatens to turn his guts into coiled knots of pain. Then, at 23, he was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), a second, rarer inflammatory condition that affects the spine, pelvis, and digestive tract. Untreated, it can lead to vision loss, fusion of the vertebrae, and cardiovascular disease.
The standard treatment for these conditions is fistfuls of immune suppressing drugs, which sap Reynolds’s strength and leave him vulnerable to colds, flu, and sinus infections—disastrous for a guy whose career depends on his rock tenor falsetto. The only alternative? An ultra clean diet and lots of exercise.
Hence his presence this morning—and most mornings—at Malibu Fitness, a decades-old establishment where locals come to lift, spin, punch, and sweat. Although Reynolds is a regular, his workouts are anything but. “I have to live a pretty extreme life not to take biologics,” he says. “AS is always out there, waiting for me.” So he keeps training, trying to stay ahead of his immune system.
Today, that means crushing this workout before heading home to write music, which he does daily. Reynolds is obsessed with routine, and his work out is a key piece of it. “I like to write every day,” he says. “I like to work out every day. I thrive with structure.”
He starts with some stretches. AS is particularly hard on the pelvic bones, so Reynolds pays close attention to his hip joints. He loosens up with lunges and yoga moves, like downward dog and a tweaked version of pigeon pose (front knee, ankle, and foot resting on a bench, torso upright).
To look at him now, you’d think Reynolds was a lifelong athlete, but that’s not the case. “At first, he was like a baby deer learning to walk,” says wellness coach Brad Feinberg, NASM-C.P.T., who has trained the singer since 2017. “But he had clear goals: He wanted to look great with his shirt off, and he wanted to dunk.”
As Feinberg says this, Reynolds heads to a loaded barbell. He cleans it to his shoulders, then begins doing front squats, a leg blaster he can’t stand. Then again, ever since he committed to the gym, Reynolds has continually embraced the habits he doesn’t enjoy. He’s also nearly eliminated processed foods, red meat, and dairy from his diet while introducing inflammation-fighting veggies, fruits, chicken, and fish.
The new recovery program gave him a foundation of health that allowed him to make rapid progress, going “close to 100 percent” in the gym daily, according to Feinberg. Reynolds does that even when he’s on tour. Sure, he’ll be up past 2:00 a.m. performing, but at 9:00 the next morning, he’ll be at the gym. Recently, Feinberg recalls, Reynolds charged into the gym after a concert, intent on breaking his deadlift personal record. He pulled more than 400 pounds—50 pounds above his previous best.
Reynolds is in that zone today, following those front squats with barbell cleans and upper-body exercises before finishing with a few minutes on the stair-climber. “It’s an hour and a half of pain in exchange for a day of no pain,” he says. “Or it’s a full day of pain because I didn’t want to work out. You just do the math. Without it, I lose my mind.”
Dan Reynolds’s Countdown Crusher
Use dumbbells for this 10-round circuit from Reynolds’s trainer, Brad Feinberg. Start with 10 reps of each move, then do 9, then 8, until you do 1. Between rounds, do 300 meters on an air bike.
Front Squat
Hold dumbbells at your shoulders, abs and glutes tight. Lower into a squat, then stand; that’s 1 rep.
Push Press
Stand with dumbbells at your shoulders. Explode upward and press them overhead. Lower to your shoulders; that’s 1 rep.
Burpee
Stand, then drop your chest to the floor. Get up and jump; that’s 1 rep. Too easy? Hold dumbbells at your hips.
A version of this story originally appears in the January/February 2023 issue of Men’s Health titled,“6 A.M. WITH…DAN REYNOLDS.”
Andrew Heffernan, CSCS is a health, fitness, and Feldenkrais coach, and an award-winning health and fitness writer. His writing has been featured in Men’s Health, Experience Life, Onnit.com, and Openfit, among other outlets. An omnivorous athlete, Andrew is black belt in karate, a devoted weight lifter, and a frequent high finisher in triathlon and Spartan races. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their two children.
