Inside Country Music Titan Zac Brown’s Rolling Iron Paradise

ZAC BROWN IS WORKING UP a sweat on this sunny Georgia morning. He’s bobbing up and down, powering along on an Arc Trainer, wrapping up an hour of cardio. It’s one of Brown’s favorite machines because it’s easy on his surgically repaired spine and “gets everything warmed up.”

During this day off from the Zac Brown Band’s Out in the Middle tour, the 44-year-old will be working his upper body, specifically his chest, triceps, and abs, for another hour. ZBB’s The Comeback Deluxe album drops September 30^th, and will feature “Out in the Middle” with Blake Shelton, “Wild Palomino” with Cody Johnson and, “Stubborn Pride” with Marcus King and Jamey Johnson. Brown and his band travel with a full gym—a rolling Iron Paradise equipped with machines, free weights, and even a sauna—tucked inside a tractor trailer. As he bangs through two sets of pec flies—starting with 40-pound dumbbells for 15 reps before switching to 20s for another 15—Brown looks more like a running back than the Grammy Award winner known for feel-good sing-alongs like “Chicken Fried,” “Knee Deep,” and “Homegrown.” He moves to the cable system for three additional sets of pec flies before starting to work on his core.

“One thing I noticed, just bouncing down the road on a bus for days and days in a row, you get hunched over,” says Brown. “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.” Now the singer emphasizes core moves to help stabilize his spine. Today he rotates through planks, crunches, and decline crunches with minimal rest between sets, the whole time working up a good lather. “It’s hard work, man,” he says. “You get what you give, whatever you put into it. As time goes on, the more and more momentum you get doing it, and you want to feel good.”

Now on his ninth North American tour, Brown has come a long way from his early days, when he and his drummer toured out of a truck for a decade before they had their first radio hit in 2008. Asked if he had a workout regimen back then, he says, “Yeah, we’d drink a bottle of Jäger before the show, during the show, and after the show.”

The Zac Brown Band’s gym fills a trailer and includes free weights, an Airdyne, and a sauna.

Brown credits a rock legend with guiding him toward fitness: “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.’”

Whether on tour or at home in Fayetteville, outside Atlanta, with his five children, Brown lifts at least five days a week in addition to doing an hour of cardio, paddle-boarding, or hiking. His fitness goal this year is to get into the best shape of his life. He’s always been a little on the heavy side and wants to finally get lean. “I don’t want to lose mass, but I just want to get my body-fat percentage down and be able to push myself so when I’m out doing the activities I love to do, I can do them better.”

Along with helping Brown sing and play the guitar better, exercise helps him mentally. “If I go four or five days without working out, everything just seems to be a little darker than it should be. 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,” he says. “You don’t want to, but that’s what pulls you out of that funk, getting to sweat.”

Brown is in it for the long haul. “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,” he says. “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.”

Road Warrior

Re-create Zac Brown’s upper-body workout with a couple of dumbbells.

1. Dumbbell DeadLift

Four sets of 12

2. Hammer Curl

Four sets of 15

3. Dumbbell Lunge

Three sets of 12

4. Triceps Extension

Three sets of 15

5. Lateral Raise

Three sets of 20

This story appears in the September 2022 issue of Men’s Health.