Former “Produce 48” Star Takeuchi Miyu Reveals Her Grueling K-Pop Trainee Schedule

Over a decade ago, 25-year-old Takeuchi Miyu debuted in the J-Pop supergroup AKB48, but you may know her better from Mnet‘s Produce 48—the survival show that created IZ*ONE. After ranking 17th on the show and leaving AKB48 to join Mystic Story as a trainee, Miyu became one of the most highly anticipated upcoming K-Pop stars. However, sadly for fans, she departed the company back in May.

Now, on her YouTube channel MiyuTube, Takeuchi Miyu is opening up about her time as a K-Pop trainee—including her grueling practice schedule.

For trainees like Takeuchi Miyu, working to debut as a K-Pop star is a lot more time-intensive than a typical 9-to-5. In a recent video, Miyu revealed that she always practiced from Monday to Saturday, giving her just one day off to rest each week. As if that doesn’t sound tiring enough, she went on to divulge that training lasted around 9 to 10 hours every single day.

Each day was made up of two components: lessons and individual practice time. The lessons, Miyu explains, were tailored to each trainee’s suitability. These lessons were run on a fixed schedule that made up the majority of each day for Mystic Story’s aspiring stars.

As for individual practice time, Miyu confesses she made daily to-do lists which she followed to get the most out of her hours. At first, she was a little worried about divulging them publicly on her YouTube channel, but she soon decided to share a few examples for the camera.

In the first to-do list, which Miyu says was made back in her early days as a trainee, one of the tasks was to drink three liters of water per day. Alongside planning out six water-drinking increments throughout the day, she scheduled breathing exercises to complete prior to singing.

Following breathing exercises, Miyu’s to-do list included vocalization and two basic dance training routines. Coming from a J-Pop idol background in which training is less intense, the former AKB48 star revealed that she had to star from the bottom learning the basic foundations and movements of dancing. After this, Miyu scheduled in stretches and even more dancing practice.

Miyu went on to reveal another to-do schedule from the latter half of her training life. Maintaining her desire to drink several liters of water a day, Miyu also included sit-ups, music analysis, and more in her later lists—as well as non-trainee plans like making plum syrup. As part of her music analysis, she filled several notebooks with lyrics, translations, and notes on how to make her performances even better.

Unsurprisingly, this intensive trainee schedule didn’t give Miyu much time to herself. “My life was just traveling back and forth between the dormitory and the company,” she says, explaining that she had to commute to Mystic Story’s headquarters each day. Of course, for aspiring stars who continue on to debut, all that hard work pays off in the end.

Former “Produce 48” Star Takeuchi Miyu Opens Up About Her “Super Extreme” Trainee Diet