Wiz Khalifa lies under the weight rack, his hands gripping a barbell a few feet above. He squeezes his abs and squeezes his glutes, then pushes his chest toward the bar. He is tackling one of his favorite moves: the inverted row, a devastating bodyweight exercise that explodes lats, biceps and forearms. “I love reverse rows,” says the rapper. “They are good for my back. I have a very broad back for some reason.”
Khalifa has been building muscle in that back, and the rest of his wiry six-foot-four frame, too, for the past seven years, and in that time he’s come to love the training process. That’s why the 34-year-old man shows up at Uncompromising performance, an MMA gym in West Hollywood, five or six days a week. And he doesn’t just do the exercises; Study them.
“I feel like it’s a constant learning process,” he says. “When you’re training, you’re always learning new methods or techniques, or doing things better, whether it’s months in advance or three months after you start or three years after you start. I love that feeling.”
In addition to making and producing music, Khalifa is growing his side jobs: Khalifa Kush, a marijuana brand, and HotBox by Wiz Khalifa, an online delivery-only restaurant. He also produces regular content for his massive social media fan base, which includes more than 35 million. instagram followers and more than 25 million YouTube fans.
But the moment you hit the gym, you forget about all of that. Right now he is working on a 90-minute session with trainer Zach Goetz. Khalifa starts by lifting weights and doing bodyweight resistance exercises (like those inverted rows), and ends the workout by setting his heart rate with 30 minutes of kickboxing. The sweat forces his mind away from music and business, and that really enhances his creativity. “I love what he does for me mentally,” he says. “I have to clear my head, different ideas occur to me.”
Khalifa also gains size and strength. He weighs up to 170 pounds, 30 more than he weighed when he first entered the gym in 2017. Back then, music was his only goal and party nights were the norm. “I’ve been in the studio, smoking weed and eating pizza for ten years,” he remembers thinking. “There’s no way that could be good for you. Look, it’s time to do something nice for yourself.
So Khalifa entered Unbreakable for the first time, with the goal of building muscle and getting stronger. And a month later, he was training with Goetz, the gym’s director of strength and conditioning. “As skinny as he was,” says Goetz, “he was a guy who was serious about his craft. I don’t think he ever does anything without the intention of being good at it.”
ethan scott
Khalifa’s focus on the gym has led him to devise a strict training plan. He exploits legs and core on Monday, chest and shoulders or arms on Tuesday, then attacks back and core on Wednesday. He repeats the entire cycle from Thursday to Saturday before taking Sunday off. He keeps going even when he can’t make it to Unbreakable, bringing gear with him when he’s on tour or working out in his new home gym when recording sessions drag on. “It could be 2:00 am and I just wrote a crazy verse,” but he can still train, he says. “And I just wanted to get it real quick. He’s right there.”
Somehow, Khalifa says, he has to do his workouts, if only because they’ll help him reach his new fitness goal: He wants another 15 pounds of muscle. be built like a house.” And he will also tell you exactly how he got this far.
magician without weights
No team? Try this bodyweight blast, which Khalifa wears when he’s on the road.
Do 4 sets of 20 repetitions of each movement.
shoulder lizard
Get into plank position. Squeeze your shoulder blades. Then spread them out and push off the floor. That’s 1 repetition.
wall angel
Stand with your back and arms against the wall, arms bent. Slowly stretch your arms above your head. Go back to the beginning. That’s 1 repetition.
Fire hydrant
Get on all fours. Lift your right knee off the ground and rotate it outward, aiming for your shin to be parallel to your torso. Lower. That’s 1 repetition.
A version of this story originally appeared in the May/June 2022 issue of Men’s Health, under the headline “6AM WITH…WIZ KHALIFA.”
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