Diet, dumbbells and dedication – how the ‘Rambo of Rock’ Springsteen is going strong at 74

His onstage cardio is legendary, but it’s the kitchen and gym where The Boss does the hard work

Nowlan Park in Kilkenny is used to feats of great athleticism. After all, the stadium is the home of Kilkenny hurling and its celebrated pitch has hosted all of the greats of the game.

Last Sunday, another giant had them in the palm of his hand – and for far longer than the duration of two hurling matches played back-to-back.

Bruce Springsteen was in town and, once again, he put on a thrilling, critically adored, career-spanning show whose intensity barely let up over the course of 31 songs.

As anyone who has seen the high king of heartland rock in concert can attest to, this veteran doesn’t do anything by halves. His unflagging energy would be remarkable for any performer, but it’s quite something for a 74-year-old.

And it’s not as if Springsteen has found an extra spring in his step in old age – he has been playing electrifying shows for more than half a century.

In fact, it was this very month 50 years ago that then rookie rock critic Jon Landau declared him to be “rock ‘n’ roll future”, so enthralled was he with the unflagging passion of one of his gigs.

Landau soon landed a job at Rolling Stone before quitting journalism to manage Springsteen full-time. Succession star Jeremy Strong is set to play him in a soon-to-be-made biopic, while The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White takes the role of The Boss.

The latter is perfect casting. Not only does Allen White look a little like an early 30s Springsteen, but the Calvin Klein underwear model is fanatical about fitness too.

Very unusually among his peers who came of age in the mid-1970s, Springsteen has always been serious about working out to the limit. He’s as comfortable in the gym as he is in the studio.

While rock’s other behemoths from the era were mainlining industrial quantities of hard drugs, with a favourite post-concert workout spent in the company of any number of eager groupies, the man from New Jersey preferred to eschew alcohol and more potent substances and put in the hard shifts with deadlifts and dumbbells.

He was so toned in the 1980s that he earned the sobriquet Rambo of Rock. The jeans and white T-shirt combo of the Born in the USA period may have been a staple of the American wardrobe since the 1950s, but let’s be honest: it looks best on men with a low BMI.

Springsteen didn’t get lucky as the years wore on; he worked at it. The last few times he played Dublin, he made sure to get the sessions in – and not sessions of a traditional, liquid Irish variety, but the ones where calories are scorched.

FLYEfit on Lower Baggot Street – housed in the old premises of the now defunct Sunday Tribune – was his workout venue of choice, and handy that it was just a stone’s throw from his digs of choice, the five-star Merrion Hotel.

That he chose to work out at a gym chain whose prices start at just €35 a month should not be entirely surprising: when he’s home, he can often be seen at the $10 a month gym, Jersey Strong. No boutique gyms for this purveyor of blue collar rock.

He is said to enjoy free weights and has mastered every conceivable weights machine, which has certainly gone a long way to keeping his torso lean and his arms toned.

Eleven years ago, when playing Rock in Rio, the tabloids cooed over his tanned, toned body as he swam at one of the city’s storied beaches. The last time there was such a fuss about a man in swimwear happened when Daniel Craig stepped out of the sea in his smalls in that first outing as James Bond. Craig was 38 then; Springsteen 63.

Of course – as anyone with even a scintilla of interest in fitness knows – most of the work is done in the kitchen, not the gym. You can’t work off a bad diet.

Springsteen is very serious about the food that passes his lips although, like any good rock ‘n’ roller, he rarely talks about it. There isn’t much glamour, let alone mystique, to be found in discussing the contents of one’s fridge.

But three years ago, when speaking on a podcast hosted by country music star Tim McGraw, he opened the (pantry) door a little.

“The biggest thing is diet, diet, diet,” he said. “I don’t eat too much, and I don’t eat bad food, except for every once in

‘The jeans and white T-shirt might have been a staple of the 80s, but honestly it looks best on men with a low BMI’

a while when I want to have some fun for myself.

“So I think anybody that’s trying to get in shape, exercise is always important of course, but diet is 90pc of the game”.

He told McGraw that he “lifts a little weight to stay toned” and added that while he still gets on the treadmill, it’s to walk. “I don’t run any more.”

Springsteen seems to have had a heartto-heart with Chris Martin about diet, too, one which the Coldplay frontman shared with Conan O’Brien.

When the conversation moved onto food, Martin said: “I actually don’t have dinner anymore. I stop eating at 4[pm] and I learned that from having lunch with Bruce Springsteen.

“I was lucky enough to go over there to lunch the day after we played Philadelphia last year. I was on a really strict diet anyway.

“But I was like ‘Bruce looks even more in shape than me’ and Patti [Scialfa, Springsteen’s wife, and E Street Band member] said he’s only eating one meal a day. I was like, ‘Well, there we go — that’s my next challenge’.”

While there is much talk of late about fasting, with 16:8 – 16 hours of no food; all food to be eaten within an eight-hour window – especially in the ascendant, there is a growing cohort of advocates who rave about the wonders of eating one meal a day.

It has even become an acronym, OMAD, and the internet is full of advocates rhapsodising about what they see as the life-changing benefits of a OMAD regimen.

The science is inconclusive. One shortterm study indicates that it can lead to weight loss. Longer-term research has a more sombre finding, reporting that respondents may be more likely to die by restricting their food intake to such a degree.

Yet another points out that while weight loss is likely inevitable, it comes with a decline in muscle mass and energy levels.

Springsteen has not confirmed or denied Chris Martin’s OMAD assertion and while he may have followed such as restrictive diet in the months when he’s not touring, it’s hard to imagine him not fuelling his body before putting it through a high octane two-and-a-half hour workout on stage.

Perhaps Martin will enlighten us further if he is invited back for lunch chez Springsteen.

They will have plenty of notes to compare about their time in Ireland in 2024 – after all, both will play Croke Park this summer.

Springsteen is first up in GAA HQ tomorrow while Coldplay touch down in Dublin 3 for a four-night stand, starting on August 29.

The competition watchdog is still carrying out inquiries into GAAGO, a year after concerns were raised that the streaming platform did not have clearance from the watchdog.

The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) only gave its blessing to the joint venture between RTÉ and the GAA on the basis that consumers in Ireland would be “entirely unaffected” by the streaming platform, which was originally designed only to show games to people living abroad.

Last night, junior sports minister Thomas Byrne called for urgent clarification on the matter, saying it was an issue of “significant” public concern. Mr Byrne said he was “shocked” and had assumed the CCPC had no issues with the project.

The GAAGO controversy is likely to reignite this weekend, with more popular championship games only being available to watch behind a paywall.

Today, every senior championship match being broadcast will only be shown on GAAGO. Fans who want to see Kerry play Monaghan or Galway take on Derry in the senior football championship, or those keen to watch Dublin play Kilkenny in the senior hurling championship, will need a subscription to GAAGO. Tomorrow, both Munster senior hurling championship matches will be shown on free-to-air TV.

In 2017, the CCPC signed off on GAAGO, specifically because it “only concerns the licensing of international digital media rights”. At the time, GAAGO was only designed to sell games to people living abroad.

The CCPC said that because customers in Ireland would be “entirely unaffected” by the venture, it did not raise any competition concerns. The CCPC said that GAAGO, as an international streaming project, would not “substantially lessen competition in any market for goods or services in the State”.

In 2022, GAAGO won the rights to exclusively broadcast 38 championship matches behind a paywall for the 2023 season, the first time the platform had a direct interest in the domestic distribution of its own content. This followed Sky walking away from a nine-year relationship with the GAA.

GAAGO’s first year as a domestic broadcaster of gaelic games soon attracted controversy, as the public and politicians took issue with popular games being placed behind a paywall.

It then emerged that last May, the CCPC had launched inquiries into GAAGO. Declan McBennett, group head of sport in RTÉ, confirmed to an Oireachtas committee last year that this meant GAAGO was operating without clearance from the CCPC.

RTÉ would later claim it had received legal advice that suggested it did not need further clearance. But it has now emerged that the CCPC has still not finished its inquiries into GAAGO.

“The CCPC has engaged with the parties on this matter and continues to do so. No further information can be provided at this time,” a spokeswoman said.

When asked for comment, a spokesman for the GAA suggested it was experiencing a “daily Q and A” from the Herald, and proposed that this publication might send all of its queries for the week in on a Friday, to be responded to by Croke Park the following week.

“I had assumed that this had received clearance from the CPPC,” Mr Byrne said. “And I’m absolutely shocked that it hasn’t yet, and it’s in operation. I think the GAA and RTÉ should make a statement in relation to this. Competition law is there to protect the consumer and we need to hear from both organisations as to what the exact position is.”

Last week, GAA president Jarlath Burns claimed he had a recent meeting with Mr Byrne, where no complaints or issues with GAAGO were raised.

“I’m not going to go into a private conversation,” Mr Byrne said.

“I think the GAA need to make a statement on where things stand. It’s a matter of significant public interest.”

A spokesperson for media minister Catherine Martin said: “As this is an ongoing enquiry by an independent statutory body, it would not be appropriate for the minister or the department to comment prior to the CCPC concluding its inquiries.”

Earlier this week, the GAA also took issue with journalists asking questions that it felt were better directed at GAAGO, “which has its own management structure”. But when asked who was the best person to answer questions about GAAGO, journalists were directed back to the GAA.

A political row over GAAGO erupted last week, when Taoiseach Simon Harris criticised the decision to put the Limerick v Cork hurling match behind a paywall. The GAA on behalf of GAAGO has declined to say how many subscribers it has, and how many people watched the hurling championship clash on its streaming service last Saturday.

According to its 2022 financial accounts, GAAGO had sponsorship income of €2.3m from subscriptions that year. This was when it exclusively broadcast games to an international audience. Its profit after tax was just over €500,000. This would have been split equally between RTÉ and the GAA.

GAAGO originally had three directors from RTÉ, and three from the GAA. Former director general Dee Forbes resigned as a director of GAAGO last summer and has not been replaced. Currently, two of the streaming service’s five directors are from RTÉ and three are from the GAA.

All of this began in 2022, when Sky tried to negotiate a new rights deal with the GAA. One of the people who would have been responsible for selling the rights at the time was Noel Quinn, the GAA’s former head of marketing who is now head of GAAGO. (“Your question suggests a conflict of interest but I can confirm no such conflict existed,” the GAA said.)

Showing GAA for almost nine years had been great for Sky, which often tended to show Saturday night matches. Sky sources suggest there was “very much” a willingness from the broadcaster to continue its relationship with the GAA. In fact, it wanted more games.

It’s understood Sky went into negotiations looking for the rights to 32 games – 16 championship and 16 league. This was almost double the number of games it had bought previously.

The GAA considered this, but in the end only offered Sky the rights to 16 games. Then this was reduced further, to just 13 games. For Sky, it didn’t make commercial sense. The broadcaster walked away.

According to sources at Virgin Media and TG4, after the relationship with Sky ended, neither of the free-to-air channels were offered the chance to buy the rights to the same games. The GAA contests this, claiming all broadcasters were told they had the chance to bid on any and all packages.

This week, when the Herald reported that TG4 would have liked the opportunity to try to buy the rights to championship games, the GAA issued a statement that suggested TG4 couldn’t afford them. Croke Park said if the GAA was “prepared to give away our rights for free,” then all broadcasters would want them.

Last year, those behind GAAGO denied the matches being put behind a paywall were “cherry-picked” to drive profit. But this week, the rhetoric changed.

In response to political criticism, GAA president Jarlath Burns this week said he would make no apologies for putting big games behind a paywall in order to drive profits for GAAGO.

“I think the GAA need to make a statement on where things stand. It’s a matter of significant public interest”