Harry Styles’ impressive Tokyo Marathon time on Sunday left fans slack-jawed. But as someone who’s taken on one of his daily training sessions, under instruction from his former trainer, his fitness levels came as no surprise.
The As It Was singer hit the finish line in 3:24:07 – an average of roughly 4min 50sec per kilometre. And he’s equally adept over shorter distances, according to former special forces soldier and Executive Peak Performance founder Thibo David, who trained the star from 2018 to 2021 as he prepared for his Love On Tour shows.
“His one-mile PB was 5min 13sec, which is incredibly fast,” David tells me. “I train elite athletes, professional boxers and professional footballers, and I keep a leaderboard of their mile times in my studio. He was one of the fastest, only 14 or 15 seconds behind Granit Xhaka.”
The pair would also go for lengthy zone two (60-70 per cent of maximum heart rate) runs around London during the Covid lockdowns. “We built him up to that; running and swimming were staples.” says David. Then their studio sessions together comprised a two-hour cocktail of strength training, high-intensity circuits, core work and faster running efforts.
This sounded exhausting, but as a fitness writer I couldn’t resist pitting myself against the singer and attempting to tackle his rigorous routine when I first found out about it last year. Predictably, I was swiftly humbled.
Below, David reveals more about Styles’ pre-tour training, and a sample one of their demanding studio sessions.
What does a week of Harry Styles’ training look like?
I started by asking Thibo David for a day of Harry Styles’ training to try, and he gave me an intense example which you can see in full below. However, he stressed that every day wasn’t a max-effort session.
“We would adapt to how he feels and his schedule,” the trainer says. “Some days we would just focus on recovery. There would be a lot of assisted stretching, work with massage guns and some cold therapy [ice baths] – he loves that, so we did it quite a lot.
“Other days he would come in and we would just focus on mobility, or we might put some boxing in there depending on what he had coming up because he really enjoys that. We would mix it up a lot.”
While weekly plans could vary, one non-negotiable part of Styles’ Love On Tour preparations was running. Given his pace in Tokyo, it’s clear this is still at the centre of his exercise plans.
He and David would do two weekly runs together – one long weekend run of up to 20km around London, and one shorter route of eight to 12km – while also incorporating running into their conditioning work in the gym.
But it’s David’s studio sessions that really catch the eye. They start with 20-30 minutes of running at an easy pace to “build up the legs and oxygenate”, followed by 100 press-ups, 100 sit-ups and 100 squats completed within eight minutes. A one-mile time trial comes next, then it’s on to strength work.
“We weren’t loading on the barbell much – he would use dumbbells and kettlebells instead,” says David. “When working with him, [I had to consider that] the risk of injury would have big repercussions on tours and shoots.
“We did a lot of dumbbell work on imbalances and stability with one-sided lifts like heavy kettlebell cleans, one-legged squats and lunges with the weight on one side to work on his balance, making him strong one side at a time and increasing his core strength.”
After strength work came conditioning: four rounds of intense four-minute efforts with a one-minute break after each one. This was inspired by David’s time as a professional fighter, with MMA athletes competing over three rounds of five minutes.
“I’ve found that to be a very good way of building VO2 max [the maximum amount of oxygen your body can take in and use during exercise],” says David.
Finally, Styles would hit 10 minutes of core work – think leg raises, planks, side planks and “a lot of ab rollouts” – then wind down with a slow-paced run, transitioning into a walk and some stretching.
“Doing high-intensity exercise can switch your sympathetic nervous system on for a long time, which is not something you want to do,” David says. “You’re always on edge and it can be tough to sleep and recover.”
“[Ending the workout with a slow run and then stretches] allows you to bring everything back down and gets you ready for the rest of the day, rather than keeping you in that heightened state.”
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Harry Styles’ workout
Below is an example of one of the sessions Styles and David would do when the singer visited his studio during their time training together.
Warm-up
- Slow jog 20-30 minutes
- Within eight minutes, complete 100 press-ups, 100 sit-ups and 100 squats
- One mile run, as fast as possible
Strength work
- Banded activations for hips and lower back – e.g. Glute bridges, clamshells, banded knee raises
- Kettlebell clean and press x6,6,8,10,12
- Single-leg squat x6,6,8,10,12
Conditioning – complete four rounds of the circuit below
- Alternating arm kettlebell cleans x30sec
- Burpee x30sec
- D-ball/sandbag over shoulder x1min
- Max height tuck jump x30sec
- Max effort SkiErg x1min
- Fast run/treadmill x30sec
- Rest x1min
Core work – 10 minutes, focussing on the exercises below
- Leg raise
- Plank
- Side plank
- Hanging leg raise
- Ab roller
Cool down
- Slow run into walk
- Stretching
Read more: An exercise scientist recommends one easy trick to increase health benefits of walking 10,000 steps a day
Harry Styles’ workout routine: the verdict
With David’s help, I tried training like Harry Styles for a day last year, completing a session similar to the one above. Given I love exercise, and there’s a whole lot of exercise to be done here, I was always going to enjoy it. But I was absolutely spent by the end.
This brings me to my verdict: this workout is fun and undeniably impressive, but it’s definitely not for newcomers to exercise. By all means enjoy trying parts of it, and take inspiration from Styles’ dedicated approach, but you’ll want to build a solid level of baseline fitness before attempting it in its entirety.
“Harry’s very dedicated, and he’s been working hard for years,” David says. “Even when he started with me, he wasn’t at the same level he’s at now. We had to build him up.”
To do this, Styles and David worked on building a strong aerobic base with long, slow and steady runs. There was also a heavy emphasis on developing a foundation of strength – “this was paramount for keeping him fit.”
“People often make the mistake of jumping into a routine they’ve seen somewhere online, then they only stick to it for a little bit,” says David. “Very quickly the body breaks down because the machine hasn’t been built properly.”
“People also ask me, ‘What should I do? I want to train like Harry’. It takes time, patience and sometimes some very boring sessions to build what needs to be put in place. The message I’m trying to put out there is that you need to use working out as something that’s going to help you live a longer, stronger and fitter life.”
There’s another secret ingredient to Styles’ training success too, which David believes is frequently overlooked: enjoyment.
“Harry has a very playful attitude towards it all, which makes everything easier,” he says. “I think people should embrace that a little bit more. Nobody forces you to exercise. Training is supposed to be fun.”
So, if you want to build stadium tour fitness, build from the bottom, work hard and have fun with it. As for the singing? That’s outside my area of expertise, I’m afraid.
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