Now is not the time for Riley Green to slow down, even if the grind may be slowly catching up with him.
By all accounts, the “Worst Way” singer is in the midst of living his best life. The North American leg of his 2026 Cowboy As It Gets tour is in full swing, just months removed from a run of sold‑out shows in Australia. On the charts, his hot streak hasn’t cooled—“Change My Mind” hit No. 1 in June, he just dropped the video for his latest single “Think As I Drunk,” and Sept. 18 is already circled for the release of his next album, That’s Just Me.
And now the five-time ACM-Award winner’s reach has now expanded to the small screen, too, after wrapping his first major acting role on Taylor Sheridan’s Marshals. Add in a co‑hosting gig on ABC’s airing of CMA Fest and a fresh announcement as one of the coaches on the newest season of NBC’s The Voice, and Green’s calendar looks completely crammed.
While Green keeps racking up accolades at almost Swiftian levels, the former college quarterback–turned–multi‑platinum headliner has also managed to remain country music’s fitness gold standard. Stacking seven No. 1 songs and still flashing a year‑round six‑pack is far from accidental, for Green, it’s the result of a pretty simple and consistent pecking order of priorities he’s developed over the course of his still-blossoming career.
“I’d say fitness is a close second to what I put into writing songs,” the former Jacksonville State signal caller says. “When I wake up in the morning, there’s part of me that’s always thinking that I should be writing today. That’s always a constant feeling that I have. And I feel like getting in a workout of some sort—whether it’s first or second thing in the morning—is also something I’m thinking about trying to fit into my day somehow.”
Like anyone else with an overflowing schedule, there are bumps in the road when he tries to keep both pillars at peak levels—especially when part of the job means traveling cross‑country in a tour bus for a good portion of the year. There are athletic perks to the profession—it’s hard to say no to 18 holes at Sawgrass or taking BP with the Philadelphia Phillies. However with a full schedule comes certain stretches during the year when Green’s energy levels can sink deep into the red. He admits that sometimes it could be a struggle.
“I go through waves of extreme motivation where I’m like, ‘I’m out on the road, these next three weeks I’m going to get after it,’” he says. “And then there’ll be a little lull where my travel gets insane and I don’t get to get a workout in, and that might last for a couple of weeks, and then I gotta find a way to really get it.”
Green thinks he’s solved that issue. He’s replicated his massive home gym into a condensed traveling version that rolls with him cross‑country throughout his current tour. “Having a gym on site just makes it that much easier to go,” he says. “I feel like 90% of the battle for me is motivation. So if I’ve got something that’s here and it’s easy and convenient for me, I’m probably gonna work out.”
Efficiency and intensity are the goals of each workout, whether it’s his classic bro split or stadium runs when he can squeeze them in. And at 37, with a lifetime of physical wear and tear creeping in, Green has added more core work and stretching to his routine, much like his football‑playing days—and if there’s a problem, he still trusts himself to fix it.
“I’ve always kind of been the guy that, when something’s wrong with my body, I feel like I’m the one that can fix it,” he says.
Austin Screws
Playing an Athlete Is Not an Act
If you’ve seen any of Riley Green’s appearances on The Pat McAfee Show, you know the 6’4″ former three‑sport high school athlete can still uncork a pretty tight deep ball. He’s also shown he’s got some heat left on his fastball and enough bounce to throw down a monster dunk on the basketball court.
Bottom line: Whenever there’s an opportunity to jump into something athletic, Green, like other former athletes turned artists, will gladly accept the challenge. Whether he’s beating out infield hits as a pinch hitter for the Savannah Bananas or launching souvenirs into the seats during big‑league batting practice, he keeps proving there’s still an athlete living inside the artist.
“I haven’t grown out of that yet,” he admits. “I still like to go over there and hit balls in a major league stadium. That’s a cool thing they let me come do.”
So far, out of the six MLB ballparks Green has been invited to, he’s left three of them—Philadelphia, Toronto, and Cincinnati—with home runs. The bucket‑list goal, he says, is to swing in every stadium. “I’ve got 24 more to go,” he says.
As many fans know, hunting remains Green’s passion, but while turkey season is a few months out, he’ll sometimes sacrifice leg day for 18 holes. Whether it’s top‑level courses such as Sawgrass or off‑the‑beaten‑path tracks, golf still provides a solid workout.
“I really like the ones where there’s just nobody there,” he says. “You can find a course in the middle of nowhere. They’re still pretty courses and challenging, but it’s just not real crowded.”
During the dog days, Green may even swap out legday for a solid round. “Now I’ll keep the clubs with me a bit, and it’s a little bit of a trade off, because if I go play 18 holes of golf in the summer heat, I tend to not be quite as motivated to work out,” he says. “So I’ll have to get up, work out in the morning, or swap it for golf, one of the two.”
Austin Screws
When Old Injuries Attack, Green Created a Core Routine to Fight Back
You’d be hard‑pressed to spot any struggle in Riley Green’s rotational power when he’s swinging or throwing. But Green, who grew up firing passes in his Alabama backyard while wearing a Troy Aikman jersey, admits some of the old football damage still flares up—most notably the two shoulder separations from his playing days. “My right shoulder every once in a while will just kind of have a flare‑up and give me a little problem,” he says.
He’s also reminded every morning by fluid in his knees that sometimes needs draining. “It sounds like an old person when I get up—popping and cracking and all that,” he says. And post-football, he hasn’t forgotten the early grind of working hammer and nails in order to be able to play a six string at night. “When I did construction work, I was sore every day,” he adds. “There wasn’t a day that I woke up and something didn’t hurt on me, and that wasn’t injuries, that’s just, you know, from working.”
Now, at 37, it’s even the little things that set off big-time alarms. One example is sleeping on the wrong mattress has become an issue, especially after long stretches on the tour bus. “It took me a while to figure it out, but sleeping on a mattress that’s pretty soft would literally have me in the morning kind of walking a little slumped over, and it’d take me till about noon to really loosen up,” he says.
Those traces of lower‑back pain, he says, pushed him to revive a consistent ab routine—something he admits he’d neglected for most of his career. “I think I’ve always kind of skated by without doing a lot of core work, because I’ve always been fairly fit,” he adds.
Instead of investing in a trainer, Green put together his own quick and efficient ab workout that he leans on primarily on the road. He targets his lower abs in a 20‑minute core circuit built around hanging leg raises, weighted leg lifts, and flutter kicks, then finishes with bicycle crunches to take care of his obliques and upper abs. The results, he says, are already paying off.
“I can kind of do that in a little cycle and my abs are obliterated,” he says. “I think that’s something I’m trying to be a little more mindful of, just to kind of get rid of some of that back pain, to strengthen my core a little bit.”
His investment, however, remains the scaled-down version of the home gym he built following COVID. With his pace, time is tight—which is why a fully stocked traveling gym became non‑negotiable. Towed behind one of his buses, it’s outfitted with a Smith machine and all the tools he needs, and allows him to get the workout in as often as time allows. “I used to go try to go to a Planet Fitness every once in a while, that’s got pretty hard to do,” he says.
Once again, Green prioritizes the efficiency of quick and steady workouts as opposed to throwing on heavy weights and knocking out a 1RM. He relies on old workouts he put together himself. “If I’m doing chest, I’m doing bench presses—flat bench, incline bench, and decline pushups—and I’m doing them all as quick as I can,” he says. “Then I’m going to another group of about three or four moves and mixing in flies with incline dumbbells and dips, and doing all three at the same time for three or four sets of eight to 10. It’s about 30 to 45 minutes and I’m kind of out.”
A new twist he’s been implementing more of this tour is an important throwback to his football roots: At 37, more stretching and real warmups have become more critical than ever. While the aesthetics are obvious, the former signal caller is now paying more attention to the finer details of training.
“When I was playing sports, we would spend 30 minutes getting loose and warming up before any kind of activity,” he says. “That’s kind of a crazy thing to think about, because we’re all so much older now than when we played.”
These days he’s making time to stretch before and after a workout, and sometimes before showtime, and Green says he’s feeling the difference. “Spending a little more time stretching before a workout and after is probably the biggest game changer for me.”
DIY Makes Room for Teamwork
In Green’s world, the connection between music and sports is simple: Put in the work and the results eventually show up. Just like with the workouts he designs for himself, he often takes a DIY approach to songwriting—and it’s paid off.
With “Worst Way” and “Don’t Mind If I Do” topping the charts, Green became the first artist since Taylor Swift to land back‑to‑back solo‑written No. 1 singles on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. It’s a rare songwriting feat, but for him it’s just the payoff for making writing a priority as often as possible. “
My mindset is, write as many songs as you can,” he says. “If you write 30 mediocre songs, you’re gonna write one good song for about every 30. And then sometimes some of those mediocre songs turn out to be better than you thought.”
That kind of consistency, he says, makes it easier to perform without a whole lot of pre-show jitters at this point in his career. “There’s not really much pressure playing a show anymore,” he admits. “I’ve done it so long now, it kind of comes pretty natural.”
What does cause nerves is performing in front of the cameras. Acting wasn’t always on his radar, but watching other artists make the jump convinced him it was at least worth a shot. “I remember seeing Tim McGraw on 1883 and just thinking about how good he was,” Green says. “He wasn’t an actor his whole life. He was a touring artist like me. So the fact that he got that good at that craft kind of gave me a little hope that maybe it’s something I could do.”
The one time going it alone wasn’t an option was his role as ex–Navy SEAL Garrett Garvey in Marshals. Even for someone as self‑reliant as Green, not everything can be done solo—especially acting, in which he relied on actor and singer Luke Grimes to smoothen out a rough introduction to acting.
“Acting probably made me more nervous than anything I’ve done in a while, just because it’s so new,” he says. “There’s so many people on a set that are there relying on me to do my job correctly before they can leave.”
Adding acting as another layer to his already hectic schedule may be a challenge, but Green has consistently shown he’ll find a way to get the job done. And as long the trailer hauling his gym gear doesn’t run out of gas, it’s more than likely neither will he.
“As long as I’m working out fairly consistently, I’m going to be in decent shape,” he says. “I just gotta keep finding ways to do it with everything else going on.”
