Do we all really have the same amount of hours in our day as Taylor Swift? It’s hard for me to imagine – she’s writing entire surprise albums while on the highest-grossing tour in history for a different Grammy-winning album; I’m having trouble balancing finishing my laundry, finding time to eat lunch, and getting in my 10,000 steps.
“Her work ethic is just incredible,” Kirk Myers tells me over Zoom. He would know: the owner of New York and LA’s Dogpound Gym has been training the star for almost a decade now. “I’m ready to be known as ‘Taylor Swift’s trainer’. I don't think there’s a cooler title out there.”
Myers has seen Swift through many of her Eras (he came on board during the 1989 album) – but he’s also had quite a few of his own. A self-described “husky” child, he got into fitness and training through a love of sports, though a few run-ins with a heart condition quickly derailed his calling. After moving to New York City to be near family, he was able to return to training at a gym in Soho and quickly acquired two new clients: his future business partner and CEO Jenny Liu, and his first celebrity signing, Hugh Jackman. “I had a friend that really made an amazing transformation in 30 days and I asked, ‘What the hell happened to you? Who is training you?’ All he said was, ‘Kirk’,” Liu recalls. “I was like, ‘Well, sign me up for Kirk because I have a wedding to get ready for.’”
From there, Myers clientele grew, and his gym Dogpound was born. Word of mouth was Myers’s greatest calling card – I can practically feel his energy through the WiFi. “It’s mostly one-on-one training, where I really look at your goals and what you are specifically trying to hit.” The goals might be a wedding, hitting a fitness personal record, or an upcoming role in a film
“I want you to come by and try the Taylor routine soon,” he says towards the end of our interview. “Though it’s really hard, some people would probably throw up or have to lay down on the floor if they trained like her,” he ends with a laugh. I mention that I basically haven’t exercised since before the pandemic. “Oh, then you’ll definitely throw up.”
Taylor Swift’s workout routine
“It’s tailored,” says Myers with an emphasis on the pun. “We approached her training for the Eras tour with the mindset of a professional athlete. There was an ‘off-season’ when she wasn’t touring and ‘in-season’ when she was.” Off-season training with Swift and Myers is intense, to say the least: “When she’s not touring, we’re in the gym up to six days a week for sometimes two hours a day.” The focuses are strength, conditioning, and targeting her core.
“Taylor trained during the entire tour. We would average two times a week. In-season training was more about maintenance, and so it was more like stability, mobility, biomechanics.” Myers worked with Dr Amin Javid, an LA-based chiropractic physician, to implement recovery techniques. “If you’ve seen the show, you know how intense it is physically. Imagine doing that three, four days in a row and then you finally have a few off days and you’re still showing up to the gym. That’s Taylor.”
How to get fit like Taylor Swift
Her time in the gym was all about “strength and conditioning” – while Swift did cardio on her own. “One thing that’s important to focus on when you’re working on your core strength is actually breathing,” Myers advises. “I know it’s outside the box, but fully breathing through workouts helps strengthen your core.”
“Taylor is the most resilient person I have ever met,” Myers adds. “It’s super inspiring to see her consistently overcome obstacles and become better and stronger in the end. This also translates into her training and throughout her workouts. I give her a difficult exercise or challenging workout… not only is she able to complete and push through it – but she also perseveres, moving forward into the next exercise. This ultimately makes her stronger, better and faster.”
On how he and Taylor met
“It’s not really that exciting of a story,” Myers says. “We met through friends – though I can’t say what friend.” And yes, he was already a fan. Some of his favourite songs include “Shake It Off”, “22” and “If I Were a Man”. “I’ve never intentionally played her music while we are training, but I love it, so yes, at times it’s come on the playlist.”
Kirk Myers’s other celebrity clients
Hugh Jackman may have been Myers’s first celebrity client, but he certainly wasn’t his last. Dogpound regular Fabien Baron actually designed the gym’s logo; models Adriana Lima, Jasmine Tookes, Kaia Gerber and Karlie Kloss have all trained with him; as have Tom Holland, Jacob Elordi, Patrick Schwarzenegger and Eva Longoria.