Why Every Tattoo Artist Should Be Strength Training — Your Career Depends on It
By Zeke Eddy | Personal Trainer at Self Made Training Facility, Murrieta, CA
If you're a tattoo artist, your body is part of your business. Your wrists, your back, your posture, your endurance through an eight-hour session — all of it either supports your craft or slowly destroys it. And most artists don't think about any of that until something starts to hurt.
My name is Zeke Eddy. I'm a personal trainer based out of Murrieta, CA, training clients at Self Made Training Facility headquarters in the Inland Empire. I work with people who are serious about improving their bodies and their lives — and that includes tattoo artists who are starting to feel the wear of their profession and want to do something about it before it costs them their career.
What Happens to Your Body When You Tattoo for a Living
The strain of being in that hunched position for hours at a time affects the body more than most artists realize — and it's not that different from what desk workers experience, just more intense and more constant. Your hips get tight, blood flow to the muscles gets cut off, your glutes stop activating, and your posture muscles get weak. That weakness leads to rounding of the back — not just while you're working, but in your day-to-day life too.
Over time, this turns into inflammation, pain, and achiness that becomes a constant background noise. More importantly, it starts to impact the quality of your sessions. When your body can't hold up physically, you can't endure the long bookings. And when you can't take the long bookings, it affects your income. This isn't just a health issue — it's a business issue.
Where We Start: Mobility Before Everything
If a tattoo artist comes to me after years of ignoring their body, I'm not throwing them straight into a weight program. The first thing we address is mobility. Opening the hips, unlocking the thoracic spine, and getting blood flow moving again — releasing that built-up stiffness before we do anything else — is non-negotiable. You can't build strength on a foundation that's locked up and compensating. We fix the foundation first.
The Muscles That Actually Matter for Tattoo Artists
Once mobility is in a better place, we get into strength training — and yes, there are specific muscle groups that matter most for people in this profession. I focus on the posture muscles: the chest, back, shoulders, neck, traps, rear delts, glutes, hamstrings, and core. The entire posterior chain, essentially.
These are the muscles responsible for keeping your body upright, absorbing the hours of forward lean, and protecting your spine. Most people think of these as "gym muscles." For a tattoo artist, they're career muscles. Strengthening them is what allows you to sit behind a client for a full day and still walk out of the shop feeling like a human being.
Protecting Your Wrists and Hands — Your Most Valuable Tools
Here's something most tattoo artists haven't considered: training can directly strengthen and protect your wrists and hands. A quick routine targeting the wrists and fingers before and after a session can help prevent conditions like arthritis from developing down the road.
And I want to be direct about the risk here — the risk is not in training too much. The real risk is in not training at all, or training without the right nutrition to support what you're putting your body through. Your hands are your livelihood. Treat them like it.
The Nutrition Most Artists Are Missing
Speaking of nutrition — this is where a lot of people fall short, especially in creative professions where the focus is on the art and everything else comes second. For a tattoo artist, the most critical nutritional focus is micronutrients: the vitamins, minerals, and compounds that support joint and ligament health.
You're putting your connective tissue under constant stress every single day. If you're not actively fueling the recovery of those joints and ligaments, you're accelerating the breakdown. This isn't about getting shredded — it's about maintaining the physical infrastructure that makes your work possible.
Building a Routine That Fits an Artist's Schedule
I get it — tattoo artists don't work 9 to 5. Late nights, back-to-back sessions, walk-in days that go until midnight. A rigid training schedule doesn't work for that lifestyle, which is why I offer an online training program that can be done at whatever time fits your schedule.
But beyond the logistics, I'll tell you this: taking care of your body should be a higher priority than almost anything else on your list. If you don't have your health, you won't have a career. Make time for yourself now, so you have more time to put in later.
What Separates Artists Who Last From Those Who Don't
When I look at veteran tattoo artists in their 40s and 50s — the ones who are still doing full days, still doing large-scale work, still performing at a high level — versus the ones who are struggling or stepping back, the difference is consistent. It's the artists who prioritized training their body and the nutrition that supports it. That combination, sustained over time, is what buys you years of career longevity that the person who never invested in their health simply doesn't have.
For the Artist Who's Never Trained Before
If walking into a gym feels uncomfortable — like everyone knows what they're doing and you don't — I want to reframe that for you. Only be concerned with yourself. This is your health, not anyone else's. The price of not starting at all far outweighs the temporary discomfort of beginning the journey. And that discomfort? It's only temporary.
The One Thing You Can Do Starting Tomorrow
If you're not ready to fully commit to a training program yet, start here: move your body more — whatever that means to you. Stretch frequently. Go for a walk. Start running. Look into weightlifting. Any movement is better than none, and it builds the foundation for everything else that comes after.
Ready to Invest in Your Career?
Working with me starts with filling out an inquiry form — it's simple and it gives me what I need to understand where you are and where you want to go. From there, we build something flexible and realistic, because your journey is not going to be a straight line. But you will thank yourself for making the decision now rather than waiting until your body forces your hand.
You can reach me by filling out an inquiry form at Self Made Training Facility's website, or shoot me a DM on Instagram at @zekesbreakthroughs.
Your art is worth protecting. So is the body that creates it.
