Greg Pratt approaches fitness and music the same way: one step at a time. The path has had its twists and turns, but Pratt keeps climbing.
It all started with a 30-pound weight vest in the stairwell of his 30-story Nashville apartment complex. Over time, the weight increased, as did the distance: He now climbs the 30 floors for three rounds, with 70 pounds sitting over his shoulders. Pratt’s workouts today are far more structured than the leap of faith that brought him to Music City. leaving the University of Alabama just shy of graduation to pursue country music, with little experience beyond a handful of open-mic appearances.
The choice he made one night to drive back to Tennessee and pursue music seems to be playing out perfectly for the Memphis-born artist. Pratt’s new EP, Sew’n Up the Heart, drops on Oct. 23. It’s a six-song collection based on faith, freedom and family, including the title track, an ode to his father, a surgeon.
While music and fitness may call for different plans of attack, Pratt sees a similarity in the process.
“When I would think about walking up and down these stairs with a 70-pound vest on, it sounded like I would never [be able to] do that,” he says. “But over time, if you set a crazy goal, and then you take small steps to get to that crazy goal, and suddenly it’s not that crazy. You’re there, and it’s time to set a new goal.”
All the songs, including “Cheap Seats” and “Like Freedom,” are original tracks written by Pratt. However, the singer-songwriter admits to lifting the heavy rucking training idea from an unlikely fitness source: country star Megan Moroney. A post showing Moroney using a weighted vest to prepare for performing in 15-pound outfits onstage inspired Pratt to add this to his performance-building workouts.
“I took that idea,” he says with a laugh. “I was like, ‘Man, that sounds great. Let me try it.’ I haven’t told a lot of people that, but I saw that and I got the idea. But then let’s do a little crazy.”
Now, the former high school fullback has traded heavy power cleans for climbing stairs and walking the streets of Nashville in his fully weighted vest. The stair climbs leave him exhausted, but he says the training has him feeling fitter and better conditioned for his busy performance schedule.
“You take the vest off and you fly,” he says. “When it’s time to go out and do what I do, my body’s trained for a lot more.”
From the Weightroom to Weight-Vest Workouts
Before discovering the benefits weighted-vest training had on his conditioning, Greg Pratt, like many high school athletes, used the weight room to prepare for football season, in which the self-described “chunky” 5’8’’ athlete played both sides of the ball, as a fullback and linebacker.
“Fullback was easy,” he says. “Take the ball and pick a hole [to run through].”
Football prep, Pratt says, meant heavy lifting in the offseason. He came close to hitting the “1,000-pound club,” landing what he called solid squat and bench press numbers, but fell short on power cleans.
He was also a member of the school’s wrestling team, and although he enjoyed the competition of combat sports, the sheer volume of cardio, which included plenty of running, turned him off. That feeling has stuck with him.
“I hate running,” he says. “I can run, but I hate it.”
Pratt says his athletic foundation remains, though his approach has changed as he’s transitioned from athlete to artist. These days, he favors calisthenics and weighted-vest stair climbs to build what he calls “wiry” strength and prepare for energetic shows.
Pratt began his weighted-vest routine in July with 30 pounds, pairing stair climbs with pullups, chest exercises and work for his stabilizing muscles. In just a few months, his four-day-a-week program has progressed from a single round to the top to three, the equivalent of roughly 90 floors while gradually adding weight until he was carrying a maximum load of 70 pounds.
Pratt says the more he challenges himself, the more quickly his body adapts.
“We adapt to what we put around us,” he says. “I go and do all that for a month until my body adapts, and then I keep moving.”
Once the ruck is complete, Pratt finishes his workouts with a mix of pullups, pushups, squats and accessory work that he says also helps strengthen stabilizing muscles that he says he oftentimes neglects in some workouts.
“I’ve done the whole lifting-heavy crap,” he says. “I think it’s great if you want to do that. But for what I’m doing, I want to be strong, and I want to look good. So I just added a [weight] vest, and I’ll go climb the steps like an old-school StairMaster.”
Photo: @leeinmotion
Fueling the Work—and Making Time to Recover
Life as an independent artist can look different for everyone. For Pratt, it means balancing a Saturday residency at the Grand Hyatt with corporate events, festivals and road dates. His full-band shows are a workout in themselves: Pratt’s rucking workouts have him showtime ready for a night of singing, dancing and wild movements guaranteed to get the crowd riled up.
“My live band shows have a lot of energy,” he says on a recent episode of the Country Muscle Podcast. “There’s times where I’m singing in the mic, then I’ll turn around and do some crazy-looking dance with three of the guys that are soloing.”
While his high-octane shows are powered by stair-climbing workouts, his body is fueled with what he calls a “trash bowl”: a sloppy but tasty blend of chicken or ground beef, eggs and a little cheese. With a busy schedule that leaves little time for elaborate meals, the guitar-playing artist has found a quick, efficient way to get a filling meal between work and training.
“Put it in a bowl, fry a few eggs over easy, let the yolk kind of go through, and put a little bit of cheese in there and slam it,” he says. “It’s just a ton of protein.”
The routine takes some planning on the road, where finding a healthy food joint can be difficult. Pratt says he looks for lodging with a kitchen and a grocery store nearby to stock up on some basic ingredients so he can cook instead of defaulting to the nearest fast-food spot. He knows that sometimes you eat wherever you can, but tries to make room for food that gives him energy for the work ahead.
“There’s two things that usually happen on the road,” he says. “Either you end up just eating wherever you can, or you really have to go out of your way to try to make sure that you’re taking the right stuff in.”
With weekends often filled with shows, Pratt tries to set aside a day to recover from the demands of performing and training. That day is usually Monday. He admits stretching is one area he could improve, but his less hectic Mondays give him time to relax before he returns to training and songwriting.
“The real challenge is the rest, but a lot of times the rest is most important,” he says. “If you’re going all or nothing and you’re going hard, you got to rest hard too.”
Photo: @Koa.Moana.ph
Built for the Spotlight: Why the Stage Is Home
The road to the release of Sew’n Up the Heart began with a small but pivotal step: Pratt taking the stage back home in Memphis after singer and former X Factor contestant Skyelor Anderson invited him to perform.
“I really wouldn’t be doing this if he hadn’t given me the opportunity on stage to play in front of people,” he says.
That brief show set the stage for a much bigger decision: leaving college—and a chance at med school—to pursue music.
“I remember sitting at the 7-Eleven on the way out of town, and I [called] my mom, and said I’m going to Nashville,” Pratt says. “She was like, ‘All right, have fun.’ And I said, ‘No, I’m leaving [college] for Nashville.’ They were so mad.”
Even his college instructors were less than accommodating, particularly when he asked to take an exam online despite the in-person attendance requirement. His request was denied.
“He wrote me an email back that was pretty much the equivalent of a middle finger, and I said, ‘All right, there’s an F on a transcript,’ and I just went.”
Pratt, who says he has OCD, ADHD and Tourette syndrome—a neurodevelopmental disorder whose symptoms include uncontrollable motor and vocal tics—has found that music offers a rare reprieve. Music and exercise, he says, help alleviate some of the symptoms while also giving him more energy.
“For me, it’s like there’s always a battery pack on board,” he says. “There’s always more energy.”
Ultimately, he describes the stage as a place where he feels at home. “There are only a few places in life where all that goes away, and I have a golden kind of flow state,” he says. “And music and performing are two of those.”
When he arrived in Nashville, Pratt says he still had a lot to learn about singing, playing and songwriting. He worked in a kitchen, played open mics and leaned on mentors, finding his footing through practice. One milestone came when he performed a song about his father on the radio. Pratt says his father, a surgeon, found a way to tune in.
The moment summed up Pratt’s journey—building the stamina, physical and mental, to see Sew’n Up the Heart through to its release. None of it has been easy, but Pratt says each step has made the process more enjoyable—and more successful.
“There’s nothing quite in the world that straightens me out like performing music does,” Pratt says.