Baard Kolstad drums like a machine, looks like a Greek statue, and says he doesn’t really have a workout plan.
Yeah, I’m mad too!
Then I asked him how he does it.
Baard is the drummer for the Norwegian prog band Leprous.
He plays fast, hard and weird (in the best way).
He’s also funny, humble, and honestly shredded, even though he insists he isn’t.
I sat down with him for my Gym Rock Crew series, while he was still on tour in Mexico.
He gave me the goods.
And here’s the big lesson: rock and metal is in a new era.
Drummers aren’t just partying anymore.
They’re training like athletes so they can play harder and last longer.
I call it The Drummer Athlete, and Baard is a perfect example.
“I only run once a year”
Baard doesn’t do cardio. Not really.
Once a year, he hops on a treadmill to check if his fitness is still good.
It’s like a yearly report card.
He started with 10 kilometers. Then he pushed to 15.
This year? He’s going for 20.
The rest of the year, drumming is his cardio.
When you play at his level, your heart rate is up and your body is working hard.
His running music is Muse and Rammstein.
Extreme metal helped him hit his first 10K.
Of course it did.
“I never sit still”
Baard jokes that his zero body fat comes from ADHD.
He’s always moving. Shaking his foot. Tapping. Bouncing.
Even when he’s sitting, he’s not really sitting.
It sounds silly, but it adds up.
It’s a textbook example of ‘NEAT’, quietly compounding into a massive daily calorie burn.
(NEAT is simply all the calories you burn doing everything that isn’t eating, sleeping, or actual gym exercise)
All-day movement, plus intense drumming, plus lifting weights equals a lean body.
His whole family is skinny and athletic.
His dad skied and his mom ran.
He says he and his brother and sister have always struggled to gain weight. (Cry me a river, right? But hear him out.)
His workout plan (it’s simpler than you think)
Baard only got serious about training about a year and a half ago.
Before that, it was drums and a few push-ups here and there.
Now he follows a simple 3-day split:
- Back day: deadlifts, pull-ups, rows, pulldowns, face pulls
- Chest and shoulders day: dumbbell chest press, shoulder press, dips, cable flies, triceps pushdowns
- Leg day: squats and Bulgarian split squats (the exercise that makes sitting down a bad idea for two days)
His favorite moves are body-weight ones like pull-ups, dips and push-ups.
He wears a weight belt to make them harder.
He always starts with the heaviest lift while he’s fresh.
He admits that after four or five sets of squats, his brain says, “There’s no way I’m doing four more exercises.”
But he climbs the hill anyway, one smaller exercise at a time.
He also confessed that it took him a while to actually like squats and deadlifts.
Same. They hurt!! That’s why they work.
“Sometimes 40% is better than zero”
This is the part I wish every musician tattooed on their forehead.
Baard doesn’t give 100% every workout.
Some days he gives 90%. Some days it’s 50%. Some days it’s 40%.
And he says that’s fine, because 40% beats zero every single time.
The real secret is consistency.
He said it’s his favorite word.
Show up week after week and don’t disappear for a month.
I’ve interviewed a lot of shredded artists, and almost all of them say the same thing: “I just keep showing up.”
No secret sauce. No magic program. Just showing up.
And no, you’re not too old for this.
Plenty of people hit their peak in their 40s when they lift smart and add weight over time. (I’m 44 and in better shape than in my 20s, so I have receipts.)
Working out on tour
Touring is chaos!
Hotel gyms are often sad little rooms with one bench and a dumbbell rack that stops at 30 pounds.
Baard says his training gets “a little more random” on the road.
But it depends where he is:
- US: Planet Fitness and Anytime Fitness are everywhere, so he and his bandmate can hit real gyms and follow their own plans.
- Europe and Latin America: Every country is different, so it’s mostly hotel gyms.
His show-day routine is smart.
He trains in the morning, rests during the day, eats well, and then plays at night.
He avoids crushing his body on show day.
Maybe he keeps it to 90%, not 110%.
The altitude story (his toes turned blue)
This one is wild. In Mexico City, which sits at more than 2,000 meters above sea level, Baard did some leg work at the gym.
By the end of the day, his toes were completely blue.
He posted it online and his friends yelled, “Go to the hospital!”
A doctor friend told him it was likely low blood flow from the high altitude.
Lesson: if you’re heading somewhere high, go easy on your first workout.
What he eats (and why he’s shredded)
Baard doesn’t count calories. He doesn’t obsess. He eats real food:
- Eggs and peanut butter (tons of it)
- Fruits and veggies all day
- Yogurt, dark bread, cheese and ham
- Chicken and beef
- A little protein powder to fill gaps (no creatine, no fancy stack)
(P.s. He revealed that he did start taking Creatine after this interview).
He has a big sweet tooth, and says Norwegian milk chocolate is the best on earth.
I’m still waiting on the chocolate he promised me!
He even loves chocolate milk.
His teeth are not thrilled about all the fruit and sugar, but that’s a different article.
His big point: he eats what he actually likes, and he mostly craves fresh food, so healthy habits do the work.
Never sick, never hurt
Here’s the part that made my jaw drop.
Baard says he has never gotten the flu, never had a headache, and never been injured on stage.
He’s played some of the hardest drumming on the planet, so how?
His answer to not getting injured… posture and technique.
He sits up straight behind the kit.
He doesn’t slouch back on those throne backrests.
Strong back, strong hips, long career.
Cold plunge? He’s tried it once.
He lasted about four seconds.
For a Norwegian, that’s hilarious!
Fighting the phone monster
Baard has ADHD and he’s honest about it.
He says the modern world has made everyone’s attention span tiny, and phones make it worse.
His fix is simple.
Wake up, skip the phone, and go for a 15-minute walk.
He says your brain switches on differently.
He admits he doesn’t do it enough (we’re all guilty), but when he does, it works.
I told him I turned off my notifications and check my phone in blocks.
It gave me back hours of my day.
Alcohol and nicotine
His rule: no alcohol before or during a show. Ever.
His bandmates follow the same rule.
He avoids hard liquor and shots. A beer or wine now and then is fine.
He also used to use snus, the Scandinavian nicotine pouch, all day and even in the shower.
About two weeks before our chat, he quit cold turkey.
He says it was a great mental test, and he stays away from bandmates who still use it. Respect.
The big takeaway
Baard isn’t chasing abs.
He’s chasing longevity.
He wants a body that lets him tour, play and create for decades.
Move a lot, lift smart, eat real food, protect your focus, and keep showing up.
That’s what The Drummer Athlete is all about.
Not the “live fast, die young” era of rock. The “play hard, live long” era.
And if he ever has spare time, Baard says he’d love to be a kung fu master or a cliff diving champion.
I’d pay to watch either.
Click here to watch the full interview
Ramona is a fitness coach, YouTuber, and creator of Gym Rock Crew, where she interviews rock and metal artists about health, fitness and longevity.
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