What’s in a morning routine? It looks different for everyone, but it probably starts at a reasonable hour and involves a lot of sensible steps. Then there’s this guy, Ashton Hall, an online fitness coach and internet personality with more than 13 million followers on Instagram and TikTok combined. His morning routine is going viral for, well, many reasons, including rubbing a banana peel all over his face, his pool diving formation and more. This all happens in one morning routine, you ask? The answer is yes. Let’s debrief.
What’s This Outlandish Routine?
While the morning routine videos he posts vary slightly, you’ll get the gist with this one, which gathered 742 million views on X alone after it was posted by the account @tipsformenx. I cannot confirm or deny whether Hall runs that account, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did.
The caption for this video is “The morning routine,” which, to my impression, implies a standard for how men should aspire to start their day. The account also posts other images of outfits, watch collections, stacks of money, rules and tips for men to follow, and fragrances. But it’s all ridiculous. Here’s what I mean:
How to Become a Morning Workout Person, in 9 Easy Steps
It’s possible, even for all you night owls. We’ve got the perfect plan.Hall’s day starts at approximately 3:52 a.m. — with timestamps provided — where we see Hall already sporting a Van Cleef bracelet. He removes a layer of mouth tape and brushes his teeth, for one minute, might I add. This is all followed up by a two-minute mouth swish of bottled Saratoga water, which will make a reappearance.
We move on to a 13-minute pushup routine conducted on what I can only assume to be Hall’s balcony, while he’s still wearing the aforementioned jewelry. Then we see Hall, seated at his desk, prepping for a shirtless prayer session, a shirtless journaling session and a shirtless session of listening to someone intensely shout at him through his phone. This is all over by 5:30 a.m. He proceeds to do a face dunk in ice water using, you guessed it, Saratoga. This will happen not once, but twice, — again around 9 a.m.
By 6 a.m., Hall is getting dressed, and we witness him strap on his Rolex before running on a treadmill in front of an AI-looking scenic landscape — notice how he’s also the only one there, per the tripod shot positioning shift — and diving into a pool for four minutes. And then he leaves the pool with his entire top half totally dry. Curious!
An influencer side note: I also cannot imagine the energy and sheer courage it must take to position your phone so it captures you entering an elevator because you’ll just have to take it back up to get your phone. This also goes for setting it up to go through a door or before diving into the pool. To me, that has the same vibe as asking your mom to rate your handstands in the pool as a child, only this time you’re a grown adult with the intention of posting a video of it on Instagram — and not in a funny way.
Anyway, next comes some of my favorite parts: firstly, the 8:45 a.m. banana peel rub, which has been rated a zero out of 10 in terms of how effective this actually is for your skin by a dermatologist. I also love how after all this, he can’t eat the banana without ripping a piece off first.
Then comes the suspiciously fake work call — 10,000 what? I need to know! — and the introduction of another character in this cinematic montage: a woman with no name who prepares Hall’s second facial ice bath and cooks his breakfast. We also never see her face, and she is actually the one who captures my attention the most. Is she a girlfriend? Wife? A relative? Chef? Someone he hired for the video? Is she okay and does she need rescuing? She also brings him another entire bottle of Saratoga water. I’d love to know just how many bottles of Saratoga are used in this video. Or in this guy’s fridge in general. This video actually even spiked their sales.
Whether or not this guy is serious or in on the joke, I don’t know, but he’s certainly not ashamed. He hasn’t been hindered from posting his routines — note the one posted below yesterday — which makes me think that overall, this is part of a clickbait scheme.
It’s also sparked some pretty incredible recreations and commentary from other people online.
Hall’s videos intersect at the center of hypermasculinity, fitness influencing and infatuation with “hustle culture” — the types who, like Hall, are committed to waking up super early in the morning and say things like “rise and grind” or “no excuses.” My reaction to it all was the exact same as Olivia Craighead at The Cut, with the question we’ve all been asking ourselves: Are men okay?
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