Bed at 8, up at 5.30: Kaylee McKeown’s daily routine, and the sleep trend she’ll never take up
Updated . First published at
“I’m so thankful my partner and I are both morning people, I would feel so sorry for him if he wasn’t.”
Kaylee McKeown’s life as a professional athlete certainly has its highs – international travel, Olympic glory – but the price is a daily routine with little wriggle room. Case in point: 5.30am wake-ups and 8pm bedtimes.
Aussie swimming champion Kaylee McKeown has a strict daily routine. Getty
“I feel like I’ve gone back to being a 14-year-old on a school night,” the swimmer, 25, told nine.com.au.
McKeown – who’s just been announced as Under Armour’s latest Aussie athlete partner – acknowledges her training regimen is “quite hectic”, with this intensity compounded by swimming being a year-round sport.
“We get, basically, two weeks off a year ... It’s not like footy, where you have an on- and off-season. It’s hell for leather all the time,” she said.
“But I love challenging myself, and I wouldn’t be in the sport if I didn’t.”
If you’ve ever wondered about the day-to-day reality of life as a professional athlete, read on.
Fitness
McKeown’s average week involves nine sessions of swimming, spanning Monday to Friday – and, “unfortunately”, Saturday mornings.
After the 5.30am alarm blares, she heads to the pool while her partner, former AFL player Declan Watson, goes for a surf or kicks around a footy.
Outside of the pool, McKeown insists she’s “not very good” at other athletic pursuits. Instagram/@kaylee_mckeown
Mondays are McKeon’s busiest days.
“I swim for two hours, I’ve got gym for an hour then I’ve got physio, so I’m not leaving the pool until about 10am, 10:30am,” she said.
“Then I come back around 2.30pm to do it all over again.”
In the gym, the focus is strength conditioning and building muscle mass relevant to swimming, and she does core circuits on Tuesday and Thursday nights.
At 25, McKeown is widely considered the best female backstroker of all time, with nine Olympic medals to her name.
However, she doesn’t see herself as an athlete outside the pool.
“Put me on land, and I’m very uncoordinated. I’m not very good at many other things. I’ve tried to pick up Pilates, and I found that quite hard,” she laughed.
“So I’m happy I have my niche little sport of swimming to keep me occupied, fit and healthy.”
The Olympian clocks nine sessions of swimming every week. Getty
Food
Every morning, McKeown opts for the same dish: a breakfast wrap filled with three eggs, mushrooms, halloumi and some chutney.
“That seems to do the trick, and sometimes I’ll add a cheeky little hash brown,” she said.
Generally, her approach to eating revolves giving her body the fuel it needs – and blocking out the body image chatter we’re all, unfortunately, so familiar with.
“You can get stuck looking at social media and going down a path of, ‘What should my body look like?’ ... I’ve been caught in that before. But your body is its healthiest when it’s fuelled the right way,” she said.
“I feel like I’ve gone back to being a 14-year-old on a school night,” she says of her early bedtimes. Supplied/Under Armour
“As a swimmer, that means eating a lot of carbs, getting the right balance between healthy fats and proteins. So I eat a lot of food, probably about the same amount as a normal man.
“I’m not afraid to show people what I put on my plate, because it’s so important to show what a healthy body looks like.”
Sleep
When it comes to recovery from her training, McKeown swears by sleep (and the odd ice bath, but she “hates” them).
In her downtime, you’ll often find McKeown at the beach. Instagram/@kaylee_mckeown
“I go to bed so early. My partner and I are in bed around 8pm, falling asleep by 8.30, 9 at the latest,” she said, likening her bedtime to that of a high-schooler.
“I think it’s the best thing for my body and what I do for my job.”
Like many of us, McKeown has habits and paraphernalia she swears by when it comes to catching Zs.
“This is so embarrassing, but I’ve slept with a blanket since I was a little kid. I still do that. I also wear those Loop earplugs, they’re a lifesaver to the point where I can’t go without them any more.”
McKeown has also toyed with trying the mouth taping trend, which involves wearing tape across the lips at night to encourage nasal breathing during sleep.
“I was like, ‘I can’t do mouth tape and then have one of those nose strips which open up your nose, plus my earplugs, and sometimes an eye mask. It’s too much!’”
Downtime
She only has Saturday afternoons and Sundays free from training – and two weeks off per year – but McKeown relishes them as a rare chance to let her body rest.
“As I’ve gotten older, the balance between being an athlete and just being a normal human has become so much more apparent,” she said.
McKeown and her partner Declan Watson, a former AFL player, are both early risers. Instagram/@kaylee_mckeown
“You need to find those things on weekends where you can go down to the beach with a couple of friends, sit there, have a bit of a cheese platter and just enjoy yourself.”
Balance and looking after her body are of special interest at the moment.
Earlier this year, McKeown was forced to pull out of the Commonwealth Games and Pan Pacific Championships after falling ill with glandular fever. She says the decision to put her health first was tough, even though it was the right one.
McKeown is working towards her return to the pool after being forced to miss two major events due to illness. AP
“I had put a lot of hard work into the training ... [and] showing good signs that I was going to potentially go and do something amazing. That was the hardest thing, knowing I was capable of doing so much more, but not having it come to fruition.”
Now, she’s working towards her comeback, which fits in with the theme of her campaign with Under Armour and its new brand platform, COMMIT.
“For me, that’s committing to the comeback of where I was in the sport, and my health, and getting everything ready to go again. That in itself is so hard,” she said.
“When you’re sick, it takes another two, three weeks to get healthy ... with glandular fever, it can be months. Part of me has my fingers and toes crossed I’ve only got a small strain, and it doesn’t hang around too long.”
