Kameron Marlowe is proving night after night onstage that it’s possible to drop weight and still gain strength—both physically and musically.
The former Voice contestant is 25 pounds lighter this year but continues to pack plenty of power and athleticism into the frame that made him a force on the high school wrestling mats. In addition to delivering a setlist full of powerful lyrics each night on his current Seventeen tour, Marlowe is squatting four plates and repping 225 pounds on the bench press with the same ease he brings to writing country hits like his recently released “Let the Lonely.”
His weight-cutting methods today are a far cry from the dangerously extreme tactics he used to make weight for each match—that means no more sauna suits or starvation diets. With a renewed focus on a protein-heavy nutrition plan, the “Seventeen” singer isn’t just looking like he’s competing for a state championship. At age 28, he’s bouncing around the stage nightly for 90-plus minutes with the energy of a champion. “I just feel more awake, more alert,” he says. “I no longer feel lethargic and tired after the show. I’m kind of on a high after the shows now, versus coming off stage before and feeling like, ‘Oh man, I need to go to bed.’”
Of course, the stakes for this weight loss—matrimony—were much higher than any match he’s ever prepared for. “I wanted to look good for my wedding, so I was like, I’ve got to lock in,” Marlowe shares, reflecting on the months leading up to his June 27 Montana ceremony with his new bride, Meagan. “I told myself that I’m gonna really take this year and fight as hard as I can for it. And I feel like I’ve been doing my best, and the results have been showing.”
Now, three months since the couple’s nuptials, Marlowe continues his powerful path to peak performance for this latest 28-city tour. Even with the chaotic demands of life on the road and the lack of consistent sleep, the singer follows a regimen dominated by heavy weights and essential conditioning.
This year, after scaling back the post-show partying, Marlowe has found other outlets to stay active during downtime on the road. Digging into his high school athlete roots, the former outfielder now swings golf clubs for another healthy source of exercise. “Whether it was going to the gym or picking up some golf clubs and going and walking for 18 or nine, that’s kind of what we’ve been doing here lately,” Marlowe says. “Just trying to stay consistent in one thing, but golf brings a little bit more structure to my day.”
Kameron Marlowe Has Gone From Sauna Suits to Protein-Filled Freezers
When it came to dieting to make his wrestling matches at 145 pounds, back then it was an unhealthy of prioritizing extreme measures over counting macros. Relying on a mix of old-school and risky techniques, Marlowe remembers training in the summer heat wearing layers of sweatshirts and beanies, even during the offseason. He oftentimes ate and drank as little as possible to keep the weight off. “I’ve done some sleeping in trash bags, and walked around with mints in my mouth and spitting all day, dehydrating the heck out of myself,” he admits. “I didn’t know what I was doing, but I loved it. It was a fun time of my life.
In preparation for his wedding, Marlowe’s approach to nutrition took on a more disciplined and sustainable routine. Meal prepping became one of his keys, and it’s became a regular part of a routine he continues implementing while on tour. “Trying to prepare my food before I leave for the road has been a game changer,” he says. “It make a difference with the way that I feel before I go out on stage,” Marlowe says.
Before hitting the road for a tour, Marlowe stocks up on homemade meals packed with protein that comes straight from his freezer. Much of the protein comes straight from the avid hunter’s own freezer. It’s a wide-ranging variety of meat—from deer, cow beef, elk, turkey, even duck.
“That’s like one of the best things that I found for myself is to try and meal prep. So I’m doing a lot of that ground beef. Honestly, I’m eating more ground beef than anything right now, just because I’m trying to work through the amount of cow that we have in the freezer.”
Kameron Marlowe Stays Country Strong for Both the Stage and Surroundings
“At 5’8” and hovering just under 200 pounds, and more than a decade since his last athletic competition, Kameron Marlowe continues putting up impressively top-level numbers in the gym. He says he’s squatted 405 for five reps—with a few extra left in the tank—while also repping out 225 on the bench press. The gains in strength and hypertrophy are evident by the singer’s thick physique when he hits the stage
He admits those numbers are solid but laughs off any notion that he might be one of country music’s strongest. Instead, he points to names like Riley Green and Parker McCollum as likely contenders for the top spot, but suspects there are others. “Riley’s got to be the strongest person out there—he’s jacked,” Marlowe says. “I’ve toured with Parker, he’s pretty strong too. I’m sure there are some other country-strong people out there who are very unassuming, but absolutely diesel.”
At home in Nashville, the singer works out at a local, family-owned club that’s a quiet retreat from the crowded chain gyms most people attend. “There’s not too many people that go there. It’s like 12 people. I have my trainer, and we go work out and then call it a day.” There he spends at least four days a week devoted to a combination of strength training and conditioning—two elements he believes are critical for entertainers to put on their best performances night after night.
Reluctantly, Marlowe says his training has seen a bit more running drills incorporated into the routine. While he’s not training like an elite athlete, the athletically designed sprint drills have helped him maintain his onstage conditioning—especially his vocals—for the long concert season.
“I’m running like crazy, as much as I hate it. I’m doing a lot of sprints, a lot of HIIT training,” he says. “When I go up and I’m exploding on stage, or having a good time running around, I can keep my breath down to be able to hold notes for long periods of time.”
Sometimes, however, all the training in the world can’t make up for the elements. Marlowe admits that managing higher elevations can be a challenge, such as during his recent performance at Colorado’s famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre, where the altitude can make holding high notes a struggle.
“I actually had one of those oxygen cans by the stage,” he says. “At Red Rocks, I was like, I’m singing some tough songs tonight. I want to make sure that I can hit the notes, so if I need to grab a little hit of that oxygen, I can grab it real quick.”
Consistency Is Taking Kameron Marlowe From ‘The Voice’ to the Fairway
While athletics helped physically and mentally mold Kameron Marlowe for Nashville, it was his leap from tiny Kannapolis, NC, to Los Angeles to participate in NBC’s The Voice in 2018 that proved to be the true career game changer.
“That’s kind of where everything in my life switched,” Marlowe says. “It was such a cool opportunity. I had to go out there just to see what happens. I went to LA for that, met a bunch of songwriters, and then realized this would be the coolest job in the world. Luckily, I moved to Nashville, and I’ve been able to do it.”
After making it to the show’s top 24, Marlowe has consistently topped the music charts. His debut track, “Giving You Up,” has now reached platinum status. Earlier this year, he dropped his third album, Sad Songs for the Soul, while his hit “Seventeen” is currently getting wide airplay on country radio.
While music has been one of the few constants in Marlowe’s busy schedule, quality sleep, on the other hand, remains a challengingly fatiguing work in progress. With 28 stops remaining on his Seventeen tour, including five in Europe, the grind of touring is a constant battle for rest as well as fitting in workouts. On the Marlowe bus, shut-eye can be quite elusive as space is at a premium. “There’s 12 bunks that are on the bus, and then I have a room in the back of the bus,” Marlowe explains. “My sleep never feels like truly restful out there, because I feel like while we’re driving and stuff, we’re bouncing.”
The effects of sleep deprivation become evident as the tour goes on. “By Day 3, I am dog tired,” he admits. Yet, when the lights go up, Marlowe gets naturally amped, entertaining fans to the max with hits such as his latest, “Let the Lonely,” along with “Giving You Up.”
Helping Marlowe add some rest, has been making consistent lifestyle changes, such as significantly reducing after-show drinking. Although a part of the routine that follows 90-plus minutes of performing, the reduction in drinks With fewer shots and other types of alcohol-fueled entertainment, Marlowe says he’s been better able to start the next day focused and ready to get his workout in at a top level.
“I think I just finally grew up,” he says. “I told myself, I don’t need to party every night. So why am I doing it? Plus, as soon as I turned 24, the hangovers hit five times harder. So I had to tame myself down.”
For a new athletic outlet, Marlowe has returned to his athletic roots: golf, which has become a healthy obsession. But as any golfer has learned, the sport is a long and frustrating lesson in humility. “For every one good shot, I would say there’s probably one or two duffs that are happening,” he says. “I want to be good at it so bad, but I’m really just not. So I don’t know what it is, if it’s my competitive nature, but trying to be better at golf is like my challenge that I’ve set out for myself right now.”
