Lenny Kravitz explains why he works out in leather pants: 'I don't do it for effect'

The musician and style icon says his curious choice of gym wear is more due to a busy schedule than any effort to thirst-trap.

Clothes may make the man, but they don't make the workout — not according to Lenny Kravitz.

Weeks after the rock star and style icon went viral by posting a video of himself pumping iron at the gym dressed in leather pants, a mesh tank top, and sunglasses, Kravitz is explaining the very practical reason for his unusual exercise garb.

"I'm always working out in leather pants or jeans and boots and whatever — if I'm not doing cardio," Kravitz, 59, told Variety in a new interview. "If I'm doing cardio, obviously I'm going to wear sweats because I'm going to be sweating all over the place. But if I'm lifting weights, I don't sweat so much."

Often, Kravitz said, "I'm coming from somewhere or I'm going somewhere. And I just don't care. I'm gonna pop in, I've got 45 minutes, we're gonna hit it and I'm gonna go run to where I'm going. So I don't do it for effect. I didn't do that to be like, 'Oh, let me be just so different and wear leather pants and glasses.' No, it's just me walking in off the street."

While his video drew criticism from some prominent fitness trainers, Kravitz couldn't care less. "I know what I'm doing," he said. "And my trainer knows what he's doing. And I know my body and what my body does and what it can do and how it feels and it's all good. I trained with elite athletes, I trained with football players, NFL and NBA stars. I trained with MLB stars, wrestlers, boxers. I've played with them all. I won't mention names, but they're all people you would know. And they'll tell you I train very seriously."

Kravitz has been working with the same trainer, Dodd Romero, for 25 years, and he isn't shy about showing off the results. He stripped totally naked for a music video, and fans got an eyeful when he infamously split his pants during a live show.

Still, he's used to being underestimated. "[One time] these big athletes saw me walking in and my trainer said, 'He's gonna work out with us,'" Kravitz recalled. "And they all started laughing. Because I was wearing jeans and a belt and boots and whatever shirt I was wearing, and they were like, 'We're gonna work out with this little rock star dude?' Like they were making fun of me. And I destroyed them. And they didn't see it coming."

As for Kravitz's music career, his latest album, Blue Electric Light, will be released May 24.

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Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.