Lady Gaga kicks some serious butt as Harley Quinn in the Joker sequel Folie à Deux. And while the 38-year-old makes it look easy, she worked hard behind the scenes to train for her role—even changing her appearance.
Gaga’s co-star Joaquin Phoenix shared that the singer-actress lost “a lot” of weight to play Haley Quinn, adding that the feat was “impressive.”
“I remember when I first met you in rehearsals and then you went away and when you came back, you lost a lot of weight,” he said at the Venice Film Festival in September, per Variety.
Of course, nearly everything Gaga does is mind-blowing, and she’s made it clear that she works hard in all areas of her life, whether it’s singing, acting, or her personal fitness. So, what’s Lady Gaga’s workout routine? Here’s what she’s shared.
She strength trains five times a week.
Gaga didn’t get those muscles by accident. Mother Monster’s trainer, Harley Pasternak, says that his famous client “transformed” her body by doing 35-minute strength training sessions five times a week.
“She used to have very little muscle tone, but we firmed her up,” he told Us Weekly in 2011.
In the mix? TRX bands for body weight resistance exercises. Check her out doing pregame warm-ups before her epic Super Bowl performance:
She loves cardio—and even sings while working out.
Gaga is big on spinning, and has even reportedly taken indoor bikes on tour with her so she can stay fit on the road. She’s been spinning for more than a decade, with Vogue noting in a recent profile that she came straight from a class.
Swimming is in the mix, too, with Gaga having shared photos of herself getting out of the pool:
All this cardio helps Gaga stay nimble on-stage. Ahead of her 2017 Super Bowl show, she revealed that she works out while she sings “because the show is full-on cardio.”
“Well, I work out a lot and I do VersaClimbing while I sing,” she told ABC News. The VersaClimber is an exercise machine that “combines both lower and upper body exercise into one natural vertical climbing motion,” per its website.
She’s a big fan of Pilates and yoga.
Gaga is all about doing a range of workouts. While a student at New York University, Gaga first began doing yoga with Tricia Donegan in Tricia’s Bikram studio on Allen Street; after she became famous, Tricia became her private teacher.
“She uses her talent to make this world better, and that’s because she practices yoga,” she previously told The New York Times. “We are using her celebrityism so that people will listen. She is blessed that she has talent, but what’s special about her is that she’s going to change the world. When I teach yoga, I teach a practice of self-compassion. When you ask, how do I teach my clients, the answer is, the way they do anything is how they do everything. So if they’re successful in one part of their life, they will be successful in Bikram.”
That isn’t the only stretching that Gaga does. She’s also shared BTS photos of herself crushing a Pilates workout:
She’s also an avid equestrian.
Gaga has spoken out about her love of riding, and even rushed from the Critics’ Choice Awards in 2019 to be with her dying horse, Arabella. (Gaga has since gotten two new horses.)
“I developed a special connection to horses,” she told V magazine in 2017. “It began when my record label gave me a horse for my birthday: an Arabian mare named Arabella. I had never taken a horse-riding lesson. I literally did not know how to ride a horse. But I just grabbed her by the mane and rode her bareback.”
She takes her recovery super seriously.
Gaga doesn’t screw around with workout recovery, sharing the details in one Instagram post about how she winds down after a show. “Post show routine: ice bath for 5-10 min, hot bath for 20, then compression suit packed with ice packs for 20,” she wrote.
Another post showed her up to her neck in an ice bath, looking like a total boss:
Get it, Gaga!
Korin Miller is a freelance writer specializing in general wellness, sexual health and relationships, and lifestyle trends, with work appearing in Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Self, Glamour, and more. She has a master’s degree from American University, lives by the beach, and hopes to own a teacup pig and taco truck one day.
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