Adrien Nunez doesn’t pretend that tour life is easy. Between long travel days, late-night performances, and constant schedule changes, structure can feel nearly impossible to maintain. But for the former basketball player turned artist, discipline isn’t about perfect conditions; it’s about consistency.
Muscle & Fitness caught up with Nunez at Stagecoach during a TikTok interview to talk all things training, routine, and how he stays grounded while balancing life on the road and in the studio.
Rooted in his athletic background, Nunez has built a routine that adapts to wherever he is, prioritizing consistency over intensity. Whether it’s a quick workout between soundcheck and stage time or a full training split when he’s home, his approach to fitness is less about aesthetics and more about performance, clarity, and longevity.
Adapting His Training to the Road
There’s no overly structured split guiding his workouts on the road, and there’s no obsession with tracking every rep or chasing numbers for the sake of progression. Instead, his training approach is shaped entirely by what’s available in the moment and what realistically fits into the demands of the day. Flexibility becomes the structure.
“Most days it’s something quick,” he explains. “I’ll run, hit 30 minutes on the StairMaster, or get a lift in if there’s a gym.”
It’s simple by design. Nothing about it is meant to be flashy or overly complicated. On tour, the goal shifts away from physical transformation and becomes much more functional. “It’s not glamorous,” he adds in reflection, “but it works.”
When he’s home, that entire rhythm changes.
“That’s when I really go in,” he says. “I’ll do an hour on the court, then an hour lifting. Five days a week.”
At home, structure returns in a way that isn’t possible on the road. The training becomes more deliberate, more aggressive, and more layered. Basketball sessions bring back the competitive foundation he built his identity on, while lifting sessions add the strength and conditioning element that supports everything else he does.
“You just learn how to adjust,” he adds. “That’s the biggest thing.”
That contrast between the two is intentional. It prevents stagnation while also protecting him from overtraining in a high-demand lifestyle.
The Athlete Mindset That Still Drives Him
Long before music ever entered the picture, Nunez was living in a completely different world. One built on basketball, competition, and repetition. It was a space defined by structure and accountability, where effort showed up every day whether you felt like it or not. Even though his career path has shifted dramatically since then, that athlete mentality never really left him.
You can still see it in how he trains, and you can still hear it in how he talks about discipline and ambition. It also shows up in the way he moves through his schedule, especially when things get unpredictable. There’s a certain competitiveness underneath everything he does, even outside of sports.
When asked about a dream stage or ultimate performance moment, he doesn’t pause or overthink it.
“The Super Bowl,” he says. “That would be crazy.”
For him, it’s not just about the spectacle of performing on one of the biggest stages in the world. It’s also about what that moment represents. It reflects the same mindset athletes carry when they talk about championships, high-stakes environments, peak pressure, and the opportunity to perform when it matters most.
“I think that athlete mindset never really leaves you,” he says. “Even when I transitioned into music, I still approach everything like I’m preparing for a game. It’s about showing up, doing the work, and being ready when it’s time to perform. Whether that’s on stage or on the court, I’ve always been wired to compete. I like being in environments where there’s pressure, where you have to earn it every day. That’s what keeps me locked in.”
That competitive edge also shows up in how he engages with sports off the field. When he builds his ideal basketball lineup, his choices are rooted in respect for greatness. He names Steph Curry, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dirk Nowitzki, and Shaquille O’Neal as his dream five, combining different eras, playing styles, and levels of dominance into one lineup.
“That’s just fun to think about,” he says. “I’ve always been into basketball like that.”
Even as his career has evolved, basketball hasn’t become something he left behind, it’s still actively part of his identity. It functions as more than just cardio or a casual hobby. It’s a reference point for how he thinks about teamwork, effort, and competition.
And that connection becomes even more obvious when he’s around other artists who share that same energy. He points to Kane Brown as one of his go-to people when it comes to hooping and training.
“We’ve been playing at his house,” he says. “He can really play, too.”
In those moments, the overlap between music and athletics becomes clear again. It’s not just about staying active, it’s about staying connected to the mindset that shaped him long before the stage ever did.
Training Through Unpredictability One of the clearest examples of Nunez’s adaptability came during a group run, Stryde Social, in Nashville with other artists, including Russell Dickerson. What was supposed to be a standard outdoor training session quickly turned into something far more intense and unpredictable.
“We were just out there running, everything felt normal at first,” he recalls. “Then out of nowhere, a storm rolled in. It went from sunny skies to completely dark in like 10 minutes.”
@tiannarobillard MAY 8th ASCEND AMPHITHEATER @Adrien Nunez @Russell Dickerson ♬ original sound – Tianna Robillard
What followed escalated fast. The wind picked up with enough force to noticeably impact movement, visibility dropped to the point where it became difficult to see ahead, and street fixtures began to sway under the pressure. Then the rain turned into hail, shifting the entire dynamic of the workout in real time.
“It was honestly kind of insane,” he says. “We had to duck under a bridge just to stay safe for a minute because it got that serious.”
For most people, that kind of weather shift would be the signal to stop immediately and call it a day. But in true athlete mentality fashion, the experience didn’t completely shut the session down, it just changed it. The group adjusted on the fly, regrouped, and treated it as part of the training environment rather than an interruption to it.
“That’s the thing about training with other artists,” he adds. “You just adapt to whatever’s happening in the moment, and you keep going anyway. It’s never really perfect conditions, so you learn how to work with whatever you get.”
Why Community Matters More Than Motivation
Despite the discipline he holds himself to, Nunez doesn’t look at fitness as something that should be done in isolation. For him, training has always been tied to other people, structure, and shared effort rather than individual motivation alone.
“I like training with people,” he says. “That’s how I grew up: basketball, teammates, always pushing each other.”
That environment shaped how he views effort. In his experience, consistency is easier to maintain when there’s someone else in the room holding the same standard. It creates a natural sense of accountability, but it also adds energy to the process. Instead of workouts feeling like something he has to get through alone, they become shared experiences that carry a different level of intensity.
“Going through it alone isn’t as fun,” he admits. “It’s just better when everyone’s in it together and you’re all kind of in the same headspace.”
That mindset doesn’t stop at training. It extends into how he operates creatively and how he manages his overall well-being. Whether it’s music, performance, or mental health, he tends to gravitate toward environments where there’s connection and support rather than complete independence.
Managing the Emotional Highs and Lows
The reality of the music industry is that it runs on extremes. One night you’re performing in front of thousands of people with everything feeling amplified, and the next moment you’re back alone in a quiet room or a moving bus trying to come down from that energy. For Nunez, that transition is one of the most difficult parts of the lifestyle.
“That post-show feeling is intense,” he says. “You go from thousands of people and all that energy to just being by yourself again. It’s a really big shift.”
Over time, he’s realized there isn’t a perfect way to smooth out that emotional drop. Instead, it’s something he manages through small habits and intentional recovery choices rather than trying to eliminate it entirely.
One of those tools is magnesium, which he uses as part of his nighttime routine to help his body relax and transition out of performance mode.
“It helps me wind down at night,” he says. “That post-show energy doesn’t just disappear right away, so I need something that helps me settle.”
Beyond recovery routines, he also relies on a mindset he’s built through training: focus on what he can control and stop over-attaching to what he can’t. That approach becomes especially important in situations where outcomes are uncertain. That was the case during the rollout of his collaboration with Diplo, which stretched across months of back-and-forth and uncertainty. At various points, he genuinely wasn’t sure if the record would ever be released.
“I thought it might not even come out at one point,” he admits.
Rather than getting emotionally locked into the outcome, he intentionally stepped back from expectations. That wasn’t about lowering ambition; it was about protecting his mindset.
“I kept my expectations low,” he says. “That way, I wouldn’t get caught up in the waiting or overthink it if things changed.”
That perspective ended up being grounding. It allowed him to stay steady through delays and shifting timelines, and ultimately helped him handle the moment when the project finally did move forward without emotional whiplash.
The Inner Circle That Keeps Him Grounded
In an industry where opinions are constant and often unavoidable, Nunez is intentional about who he allows into his decision-making process. Over time, he’s learned that not every voice deserves equal weight, especially when the noise is nonstop.
“Everyone has an opinion,” he says. “You can’t take all of it in, or you’d lose yourself in it.” Instead, he keeps a tight inner circle made up of family, close friends, and his girlfriend, people who understand him beyond his career and aren’t influenced by outside perception.
“They’re the ones I trust,” he says. “Everything else is secondary compared to that.”
That group serves as more than just emotional support. It functions as a grounding system that helps him filter decisions, stay balanced, and maintain perspective when things move quickly.
His relationship, in particular, has become a steadying force in his day-to-day life. It provides consistency in an environment that is otherwise constantly shifting.
“She’s super supportive,” he says. “She understands the lifestyle and what comes with it, which makes a big difference.”
What stands out most for him, though, is that the support isn’t passive; it’s shared.
Even fitness has become something they actively do together rather than separately. Over time, that shared routine has created another layer of alignment in their relationship. “She didn’t really train before,” he says. “But now she’s in the gym consistently, and that’s something I really value.”
From basketball standout at the University of Michigan to one of country music’s fastest-rising names, Adrien Nunez has built his career on adaptability, discipline, and a willingness to evolve. After first gaining traction online for championing emerging country artists and helping amplify breakout records across social media, Nunez has stepped fully into his own spotlight with a rapidly growing music career that now includes more than 182 million global streams, a spot on Amazon Music’s 2025 Country Heat Artists to Watch list, and performances on some of the genre’s biggest stages, including Stagecoach.
Following the release of his Don’t Wanna Go Home EP and a headline tour run across the U.S., Nunez continues to prove that the same mindset that once fueled him on the basketball court now drives him through every part of his career. “I think everything is tied together,”
Nunez adds. “The way you train, the way you take care of yourself, your routine, your mental health, it all affects how you show up every day.”
