Mike Posner nabbed 2016’s most controversial hit – as well as one of its biggest – in the form of “I Took A Pill In Ibiza.” Scoring this smash, as well as writing for some of the music industry’s biggest stars, including Justin Bieber and Maroon 5, would be sure to take the wind out of most people, so how does he find any sort of motivation to trudge to the gym?
How would you rate your fitness on a scale of one to 10?
I would say I’m probably an eight, or an 8.4. I’d like to get up to a nine, but I think a 10 is reserved for professional athletes, and their job is to be a 10, and they get paid to do that. I get paid to do music, so I can’t devote all my time to being a 10 – I think it’s off the table for me. Whereas a nine is attainable – I’m damn close!
How important is health and fitness to you?
It’s incredibly important, and I exercise five to six days per week. For me, being happy is the most important thing in my life and when I exercise, I feel happy. When I do a hard workout, I feel really good and I have more energy throughout the day. Also, a by-product of that is my body looks nicer too, which is not a bad thing…
What do you do, fitness-wise?
I’m attempting to minimise body fat percentage, so I’m cutting right now. I do HIIT workouts, and I work a lot with a trainer called Eric Small (Instagram: @confusedmuscles), and he does a lot of callisthenics. I also do a lot of interval sprints – I’ll run up a hill, come down, do 10 burpees then sprint up again, and repeat that 10 times. I do a lot of deadmills, too – where you run on the treadmill without turning it on.
How is your fitness fingerprint unique to you and your career?
I’d like to think that it helps me to be creative in my workouts – inventing an exercise or a circuit is parallel to creating a song; they’re all forms of creation. Also there are certain songs that I use repeatedly – I always do Tabata to “Singularity” by Hollow & Akimbo, and when I hear that song my body knows what to do, because I don’t listen to it any time other than when I work out.
What do you do to motivate yourself?
Because I’m an artist I can make my own hours, and that sounds liberating at first, but actually too many options can be just as debilitating as not enough options. So if I wake up and can do whatever I want, I can’t decide and end up doing nothing! Working with a trainer is incredible as it gives me structure, where otherwise it would be an absolute free-for-all – to have a partner to hold you accountable is huge, because you don’t want to let them down.
Mike’s album At Night, Alone is out now. Buy on iTunes
