That would always change when Arnold would head out on tour. (Most years, once the season wraps up, the cast performs in dozens of cities across the country.) Long stretches on the road meant she wasn’t rehearsing as much, so she’d find new ways to stay conditioned. After waking up on the tour bus each morning, she would Google the closest gym and head over to squeeze in a sweat sesh: 30 minutes of cardio on a Peloton, treadmill, or stair stepper followed by a 30-minute floor workout. Describing herself as “someone who doesn’t like to stick with the same type of movement,” Arnold says she tended to alternate between Pilates, weightlifting, and HIIT. Besides, variety can instigate more effective workouts: “If you just do the same routine over and over and over and over again, it eventually kind of loses its effect and your body gets used to it, so challenging yourself and switching up what you’re doing is so important,” she explains.
Regardless of her workout, Arnold always made a point to prioritize one particular muscle group: the core. While many people want to strengthen their core for aesthetic reasons, she says, the functional benefits are far more significant—not only for dancing, but also for pretty much every other type of movement. “Everything moves from the core, and having a strong base is going to help you with so many other things,” Arnold says. In fact, her new boot camp series features an entire segment dedicated to Johnson’s go-to core workout: “It’s stunning, especially considering she had a baby,” Arnold says. (Johnson gave birth to her son, Rome Valentin, in 2023.)
Once Arnold finished up in the gym, she would head back to the bus until the night’s performance, which provided another “two to three hours of straight cardio.” It was just “Go, go, go, go, go,” she says.
Arnold’s pregnancy and postpartum workout routine
“Getting pregnant changed everything—literally everything—in my life in such a beautiful way. But at first, it was very, very, very scary,” she says. Growing a baby takes a toll on anyone, but when your career and livelihood depend on your capacity for physical movement, it can become an even more daunting prospect. “This lifestyle that I knew—the way I moved my body, the way I expressed myself—was just drastically changing, and I was really terrified,” Arnold says.
