‘I’m ready to be known as Taylor Swift’s trainer,’ says KC native, UMKC grad to Vogue

When she sings “The 1” during her Eras Tour concerts Taylor Swift lays on the grassy roof of a cabin then climbs down on steps built into the steep incline.

At one of her Tokyo Dome concerts in February her foot caught on the hem of her gown. She stumbled forward but quickly caught herself. It scared her. Fans gasped.

“My life flashed before my eyes. Yeah,” she told them when she reached the safety of the stage. “Nah, I’m good, it’s all good. Everything’s fine, everything’s great. I’m just so happy that I didn’t fall off the Folklore cabin.”

It’s obvious watching video of the headline-making close call that it took every ounce of her core strength to steady herself and stay upright.

And the fitness guru who helped strengthen those core muscles, as well as prepare the star for 152 shows in 54 cities worldwide, hails from Kansas City.

“I’m ready to be known as ‘Taylor Swift’s trainer,’” Kirk Myers told Vogue last week. “I don’t think there’s a cooler title out there.”

Myers founded the famous Dogpound gym in New York City and Los Angeles, known for an elite clientele that has included Justin Bieber, Tom Holland, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Hugh Jackman and models Karlie Kloss, Kaia Gerber and Adriana Lima.

Swift and Kelce are reportedly staying at her home in Los Angeles during her tour break. Last month they worked out together at the Dogpound in West Hollywood. Tabloids reported they had the gym to themselves and members were left waiting outside. (The gym later denied members had to wait two hours to get in.)

In 2018 Business Insider declared Dogpound “the coolest, most Instagrammed gym in New York.”

Myers began training Swift when her “1989” album debuted nearly a decade ago. He told Vogue he met her through friends — “it’s not really that exciting of a story” — and then joined the chorus of people who gush over Swift’s strong work ethic.

In a video she posted last week showing 14 quick snippets of her life at home she was seen briefly working on her glutes at Dogpound, perched on her hands and knees atop a box and doing leg lifts with weights fastened around each ankle.

That’s the Dogpound “booty builder.”

“We approached her training for the Eras tour with the mindset like a professional athlete,” Myers told Vogue. “There was an ‘off-season’ when she wasn’t touring and ‘in-season’ when she was.

“When she’s not touring, we’re in the gym up to six days a week for sometimes two hours a day.”

In an interview with his alma mater in February, Myers said he followed his sister to UMKC where she went to law school. He wanted a career in fitness to save lives.

In high school Myers weighed more than 300 pounds and was diagnosed with congestive heart failure when he was 21, Business Insider reported shortly after Myers became a name in the fitness industry.

“I had my own battles with obesity at a very young age to the point where I almost died,” Myers told UMKC. “I was determined to get myself healthy and fit and was able to lose weight. I set out to help others and from then on that’s been my mission and I love it.

“I ended up losing 100 pounds during my time at UMKC.”

No treadmills at Dogpound

When he moved to New York City in 2011 Myers began training clients at a gym in Soho where his clients included Jackman, his first celebrity client, and Jenny Liu, who eventually became his business partner.

“I had a friend that really made an amazing transformation in 30 days and I asked, ‘What the hell happened to you? Who is training you?’” Liu told Vogue.

“All he said was ‘Kirk.’ I was like, ‘Well, sign me up for Kirk because I have a wedding to get ready for.’”

When he opened his own gym Myers was inspired to name it Dogpound because Jackman “always brought his dog around,” Myers told UMKC.

As star-powered as the clientele is, there’s nothing flashy about the gym or the workouts, Myers has said, describing his approach as an “old-school, in-your-garage workout.” Which means no treadmills in his gyms.

With Swift, he focuses on core strength, conditioning and overall strength, he told Vogue.

“Taylor trained during the entire tour,” he told the fashion magazine. “We would average two times a week. In-season training was more about maintenance, and so it was more like stability, mobility, biomechanics.

“If you’ve seen the show, you know how intense it is physically. Imagine doing that three, four days in a row and then you finally have a few off days and you’re still showing up to gym.

“That’s Taylor.”