{"id":874402,"date":"2026-08-31T00:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T00:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/874402\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T00:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T00:18:16","slug":"kaylee-mckeown-daily-routine-olympic-swimmer-shares-her-training-eating-and-sleep-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/874402\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaylee McKeown daily routine: Olympic swimmer shares her training, eating and sleep habits"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019m so thankful my partner and I are both morning people<\/a>, I would feel so sorry for him if he wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kaylee McKeown<\/a>\u2019s life as a professional athlete certainly has its highs \u2013 international travel, Olympic glory \u2013 but the price is a daily routine<\/a> with little wriggle room. Case in point: 5.30am wake-ups and 8pm bedtimes.<\/p>\n

\"Paris<\/p>\n

Aussie swimming champion Kaylee McKeown has a strict daily routine.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019ve gone back to being a 14-year-old on a school night,\u201d the swimmer, 25, told nine.com.au.<\/p>\n

McKeown<\/a> \u2013 who\u2019s just been announced as Under Armour\u2019s latest Aussie athlete partner \u2013 acknowledges her training regimen is \u201cquite hectic\u201d, with this intensity compounded by swimming being a year-round sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get, basically, two weeks off a year … It\u2019s not like footy, where you have an on- and off-season. It\u2019s hell for leather all the time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I love challenging myself, and I wouldn\u2019t be in the sport if I didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve ever wondered about the day-to-day reality of life as a professional athlete, read on.<\/p>\n

Fitness<\/p>\n

McKeown\u2019s average week involves nine sessions of swimming, spanning Monday to Friday \u2013 and, \u201cunfortunately\u201d, Saturday mornings.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\"Kaylee<\/p>\n

Outside of the pool, McKeown insists she\u2019s \u201cnot very good\u201d at other athletic pursuits.\u00a0Instagram\/@kaylee_mckeown<\/p>\n

Mondays are McKeon\u2019s busiest days. <\/p>\n

\u201cI swim for two hours, I\u2019ve got gym for an hour then I\u2019ve got physio, so I\u2019m not leaving the pool until about 10am, 10:30am,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I come back around 2.30pm to do it all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

At 25, McKeown is widely considered the best female backstroker of all time, with nine Olympic medals to her name.<\/p>\n

However, she doesn\u2019t see herself as an athlete outside the pool.<\/p>\n

\u201cPut me on land, and I\u2019m very uncoordinated. I\u2019m not very good at many other things. I\u2019ve tried to pick up Pilates, and I found that quite hard,\u201d she laughed.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m happy I have my niche little sport of swimming to keep me occupied, fit and healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kaylee<\/p>\n

The Olympian clocks nine sessions of swimming every week.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Food<\/p>\n

Every morning, McKeown opts for the same dish: a breakfast wrap filled with three eggs, mushrooms, halloumi and some chutney.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat seems to do the trick, and sometimes I\u2019ll add a cheeky little hash brown,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Generally, her approach to eating revolves giving her body the fuel it needs \u2013 and blocking out the body image chatter we\u2019re all, unfortunately, so familiar with.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can get stuck looking at social media and going down a path of, \u2018What should my body look like?\u2019 … I\u2019ve been caught in that before. But your body is its healthiest when it\u2019s fuelled the right way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Australian<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019ve gone back to being a 14-year-old on a school night,\u201d she says of her early bedtimes.\u00a0Supplied\/Under Armour<\/p>\n

\u201cAs 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not afraid to show people what I put on my plate, because it\u2019s so important to show what a healthy body looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sleep<\/p>\n

When it comes to recovery from her training, McKeown swears by sleep (and the odd ice bath<\/a>, but she \u201chates\u201d them).<\/p>\n

\"Kaylee<\/p>\n

In her downtime, you\u2019ll often find McKeown at the beach.\u00a0Instagram\/@kaylee_mckeown<\/p>\n

\u201cI go to bed so early. My partner and I are in bed around 8pm, falling asleep by 8.30, 9 at the latest,\u201d she said, likening her bedtime to that of a high-schooler.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s the best thing for my body and what I do for my job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like many of us, McKeown has habits and paraphernalia she swears by when it comes to catching Zs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is so embarrassing, but I\u2019ve slept with a blanket since I was a little kid. I still do that. I also wear those Loop earplugs, they\u2019re a lifesaver to the point where I can\u2019t go without them any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018I can\u2019t 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\u2019s too much!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Downtime<\/p>\n

She only has Saturday afternoons and Sundays free from training \u2013 and two weeks off per year \u2013 but McKeown relishes them as a rare chance to let her body rest.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I\u2019ve gotten older, the balance between being an athlete and just being a normal human has become so much more apparent,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Kaylee<\/p>\n

McKeown and her partner Declan Watson, a former AFL player, are both early risers.\u00a0Instagram\/@kaylee_mckeown<\/p>\n

\u201cYou 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Balance and looking after her body are of special interest at the moment. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Kaylee<\/p>\n

McKeown is working towards her return to the pool after being forced to miss two major events due to illness.\u00a0AP<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, she\u2019s working towards her comeback, which is the theme of her campaign with Under Armour.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, that\u2019s 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re 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\u2019ve only got a small strain, and it doesn\u2019t hang around too long.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m so thankful my partner and I are both morning people, I would feel so sorry for him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134],"class_list":["post-874402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}