Much of America is effectively shut down amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic — but according to The Hill, that isn’t keeping Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg from adhering to her strict health regimen.
Ginsburg’s personal trainer, Bryant Johnson, says the 87-year-old jurist is keeping up her biweekly workout routine, even as COVID-19 outbreaks continue popping up across the nation.
“She doesn’t make excuses”
The revelation came in an interview with Law360, where Johnson, a U.S. Army veteran who is now an employee of the federal court system, said Ginsburg isn’t making any excuses when it comes to her workouts.
“Everybody’s been shut down. The only reason why I didn’t shut the justice down is because, hey, she ain’t having it,” Johnson, who has served as Ginsburg’s personal trainer for years, told Law360, according to The Hill. “She has that grandfather status to me and if she wants to train, that‘s the least that I can do.
“Her choice is, she doesn’t make excuses not to do it,” he added. “So we find ways to do it.”
Getting up close and personal
Johnson explained that he has dropped all of his other clients besides Ginsburg in light of the coronavirus outbreak. He said additional measures are also being taken in hopes of reducing the chances that the 87-year-old justice, who has suffered from numerous health problems over the years including multiple bouts of cancer, contracts the deadly disease.
“Well it’s like this: Before I go in, I wipe down every piece of equipment that I think she is going to touch and come in contact with,” Johnson told Law360, according to The Hill. “Then I go back in and wash my hands.”
Ginsburg’s workout routine largely consists of low-impact exercises like planks and pushups, the trainer said. And because she and Johnson have worked together for so long, she doesn’t really need all that much hands-on assistance from him.
“All I have to do is set it up and she just automatically knows exactly what I want to do,” he explained, according to The Hill. “It doesn’t require me to grab her, hold her, get up close and personal.”
Twice a week
Ginsburg and Johnson likely have plenty of time to fit in her biweekly workout sessions due to the fact that the Supreme Court has all but ground to a halt — like so much else in this country. According to Politico, the high court has postponed oral arguments indefinitely, though the justices continue to discuss pertinent matters by way of conference calls.
According to the Supreme Court’s public information officer, all of the justices remain “healthy,” the Associated Press reports — and it appears that Ginsburg, for her part, intends to keep it that way.
“I don’t know anybody who doesn’t feel better after a workout is completed, and that includes the justice,” Johnson told Law360, according to The Hill. “No matter what, we try to get it in twice a week.”
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