For Dermot Kennedy, creating music and performing it are two very different experiences.
The Irish singer-songwriter has built a career around emotionally charged songs and powerful live performances, but behind the music is an increasingly deliberate approach to fitness, recovery, and maintaining his physical health. With his third studio album, The Weight of the Woods, now released and a world tour underway, Kennedy is balancing the demands of life on the road with a training routine that helps him perform at his best.
Much of that preparation comes back to running.
Kennedy recently partnered with Brooks Running for the DK5K Series, a multi-city 5K experience taking place alongside his tour dates. The series kicked off in Dublin earlier this summer, giving Kennedy an opportunity to connect with fans in a setting that feels less like a traditional concert and more like a shared experience.
For Kennedy, that authenticity is a major part of what made the partnership appealing.
“I think the beauty of it is that it doesn’t feel forced,” Kennedy explained. The first event in Ireland, he said, felt more like a meet-up than a performance. That distinction matters for an artist whose career is built around creating a genuine connection with his audience.
The partnership also makes sense given Kennedy’s own relationship with running. As he continues performing massive shows throughout the world, running has become an important component of his fitness routine, particularly as he works to improve his VO2 max and build the cardiovascular capacity necessary for performing night after night.
The Weight of Creating an Album
For Kennedy, the emotional intensity of an album doesn’t necessarily begin when it is released. It starts much earlier, when the music is still private.
“The bulk of the emotion is in the creation,” Kennedy says.
Creating an album is a deeply personal endeavor. Long before any listener hears the final tracks, Kennedy spends months, or even longer, living alongside the songs, questioning their direction, and envisioning what they could ultimately become. Consequently, by the time a record is released to the public, he has already navigated most of its emotional path.
Then comes the anticipation.
The release of The Weight of the Woods brought excitement, but Kennedy admits that the pressure surrounding his work is often self-imposed. As soon as one project reaches its destination, his mind can begin moving toward the next one.
“I think the pressure is mostly self-inflicted,” he says.
His answer isn’t to eliminate those expectations entirely. Instead, he’s trying to create some distance from them.
“I try to detach from it,” Kennedy explains.
That detachment has allowed him to appreciate where he is in his career rather than constantly measuring himself against what comes next. At this point, he says he feels grateful and content with where he is creatively and with his ability to perform.
For Kennedy, the goal remains relatively simple: make the best music possible and allow the rest to follow.
Training for the Stage
Kennedy’s approach to fitness is rooted partly in his athletic background. Before music became his career, soccer, mainly referred to as “football” by the Irishman, was a major part of his life. He played central midfield and once dreamed of playing professionally for Manchester United. That experience continues to influence how he thinks about movement, conditioning, and what it means to be physically prepared.
“I was obsessed with football,” Kennedy said, recalling how seriously he once considered pursuing the sport professionally. Playing senior football taught him the importance of being able to move efficiently for an extended period of time, something that now translates surprisingly well to life on stage.
Kennedy sees a clear connection between athletic conditioning and performance. A concert may not look like a traditional sporting event, but physically, there are plenty of similarities. He is moving, singing, controlling his breathing, and maintaining his energy for an extended period, often in front of thousands of people.
“I think being fit is really important for singing,” he explained. For Kennedy, that means thinking beyond traditional strength training and focusing on things such as diaphragm control, breath efficiency, and posture. “You need to be able to control your diaphragm, and obviously your breathing is a huge part of singing.”
That is where running has become particularly valuable.
“Running is a big part of my training now,” Kennedy said, pointing to VO2 max as one of the reasons he has gravitated toward it.
His football background also shaped his philosophy around strength and body composition. Kennedy remembers being conscious of the importance of staying light and quick on the pitch, and he isn’t convinced that simply adding more muscle automatically makes someone a better athlete.
“I always wanted to be light and quick,” he said, reflecting on his football days. He recalled being frustrated by the idea that more weightlifting necessarily meant better football performance. For a midfielder, he valued being able to move, react, and maintain that athletic flow.
That idea of flow is particularly interesting to Kennedy because it separates his experience in football from his experience making music. During a great football match, he described reaching a state where decisions and movement can happen almost instinctively. Music requires a different kind of mental intensity.
“There’s a flow state in football that I really love,” Kennedy said. “It’s a different kind of focus than music.”
Still, the underlying principle remains the same: preparation creates freedom. Whether he’s stepping onto a football pitch or a massive concert stage, being physically prepared allows him to focus on the moment rather than worrying about whether his body can keep up.
And with a world tour demanding performance after performance, that preparation has become less of an accessory to his career and more of a necessity.
Recovery Doesn’t Stop When the Show Ends
For an artist constantly moving from city to city, recovery can be just as important as training.
After a performance, Kennedy has developed a vocal warm-down routine that includes quietly humming to help bring his voice down after a demanding show. “I do a little vocal warm-down after the show, just humming quietly and bringing everything back down,” he explained. “It’s not anything revolutionary, but it definitely helps.”
He has also experimented with hot tubs and cold plunges while on tour, recalling a Canadian run of shows where the combination became a particularly useful part of his recovery routine. “We had hot tubs and cold plunges on that tour in Canada, and honestly, I felt great,” Kennedy said. “When you’re doing show after show, you start paying attention to anything that helps you feel better the next day.”
But Kennedy recognizes that recovery on the road isn’t always easy.
Sleep remains one of the biggest challenges, especially when travel, late performances, and a packed schedule collide. “The hardest thing is probably sleep,” he admitted. “You’re constantly moving, changing time zones, getting in late, and then trying to do it all again the next day.”
While he has occasionally experimented with supplements for sleep and energy, he generally prefers a more natural approach to maintaining his health. “I’m not hugely regimented with supplements,” Kennedy said. “I’ve tried different things, but I usually find that the basics, sleep, recovery, and taking care of yourself, make the biggest difference.”
That balance, training hard while understanding when to recover, has become increasingly important as his career continues to grow. For Kennedy, longevity isn’t about finding a miracle recovery tool. It’s about consistently taking care of the body and voice that allow him to perform at a high level night after night.
The Emotional Weight of Creating Music
For Kennedy, the most intense part of releasing an album doesn’t necessarily come when the record finally reaches the public. It happens much earlier, during the quiet and often isolated process of making it.
With The Weight of the Woods, Kennedy found himself navigating the familiar emotional cycle that accompanies any major creative project: excitement, anticipation, uncertainty, and, eventually, the strange feeling of letting something deeply personal go.
“The bulk of the emotion is in the creation,” Kennedy said, explaining that making an album is a private experience long before it becomes a public one.
Once the music is finished, however, the emotional process doesn’t necessarily end. In some ways, Kennedy’s mind immediately begins moving forward. The anticipation of releasing one project can quickly turn into thoughts about what comes next.
That constant forward momentum can create its own pressure.
“I think the pressure is mostly self-inflicted,” Kennedy admitted.
For an artist at his level, there are plenty of external expectations, from fans, the industry, and the natural desire to build on previous success. But Kennedy recognizes that some of the loudest expectations are the ones he creates for himself.
His answer has been learning to detach.
“I try to detach from it,” he explained, emphasizing that stepping away from those expectations allows him to actually enjoy the creative process rather than becoming consumed by what the finished product might mean.
That perspective has become particularly important as Kennedy has reached a point in his career where he can look back with genuine gratitude. Rather than constantly chasing the next milestone, he says he feels content with where he is creatively and with his ability to perform.
That doesn’t mean the ambition has disappeared. If anything, it gives him the freedom to focus on the part of the process he can control: making music he believes in.
“Making the best music” is ultimately what Kennedy says has served him best.
It’s a mindset that extends beyond the studio. Kennedy’s career now exists in a constant cycle of creation, release, performance and anticipation, but he seems increasingly interested in appreciating each stage rather than allowing himself to become consumed by the next one.
Perhaps that’s why one of his most refreshing stories from the past few months had nothing to do with music at all.
While in Switzerland, Kennedy lost his phone. Instead of treating the situation as a disaster, he found the forced disconnection unexpectedly refreshing. Without the immediate pull of messages, notifications and the demands of being constantly reachable, he experienced something increasingly rare in modern life: uninterrupted space.
The experience made him consider intentionally recreating that feeling.
For an artist whose job requires him to constantly communicate, perform and remain connected, occasionally stepping away may be just as important as stepping forward.
And as Kennedy continues taking The Weight of the Woods around the world, that ability to create space both mentally and creatively, could prove just as valuable as anything else in his routine.
Running Toward What’s Next
The DK5K Series gives Kennedy another opportunity to bring those worlds together. Rather than simply talking about fitness, he’s inviting fans to participate alongside him, creating a shared experience around something that has become an important part of his own routine.
The series arrives alongside Brooks’ latest footwear launch, the Ghost Amp, which officially launched on August 1st, adding another layer to a partnership built around Kennedy’s genuine enthusiasm for running.
For Kennedy, though, the bigger picture extends beyond a shoe, a race, or even a training session. It’s about maintaining the physical and mental capacity to keep doing what he loves.
With The Weight of the Woods behind him, a world tour in progress, and more music already occupying his thoughts, Kennedy’s next chapter is already taking shape.
And if his current routine is any indication, he’ll be running toward it.
