The next time you want to skip a workout, think of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The Supreme Court Justice and women’s rights activist, who died last week at 87 years old, was a “fitness icon” who worked out twice a week with her personal trainer Bryant Johnson — she was still lifting weights during the pandemic. “Justice Ginsburg does 10 pushups and she does not do the so-called ‘girl pushups.’ She does not use her knees. And then she stretches back for a very brief pause and she does 10 more,” Georgetown Law Professor Mary Hartnett told Politico in 2017. To honor Ginsburg, the first woman to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol, Johnson performed push-ups next to her casket on Friday:
As lawmakers and other mourners took turns bowing their heads or making signs of the cross to honor Justice Ginsburg, Bryant Johnson, an Army veteran who served as her longtime trainer, honored her with a different kind of gesture: He dropped to the floor before her coffin and did three full push-ups.
Ginsburg once jokingly (?) called Johnson the “most important person” in her life.
Watch: Ruth Bader Ginsburg's personal trainer Bryant Johnson does pushups in front of her casket pic.twitter.com/CQP6he3BEU
— Axios (@axios) September 25, 2020
“I looked and said, ‘Justice, you left the president to come do the workout?’ And [she] said, ‘Yes, gotta do my pushups, gotta do my planks and my workout.’ I was like, ‘Yes, nice!'” Johnson told ABC earlier this year. “She’s never, ever told me can’t.” If you want to work out like RBG, as Stephen Colbert once did, the regimen is available here.
This has to be the first time anyone's ever done pushups as someone lies in state at the US Capitol and it's never been more fitting. This was RBG's trainer. https://t.co/dk1qYWvqxB
— Omar Jimenez (@OmarJimenez) September 25, 2020
So beautiful. So honoring. #RBG 's trainer Bryant Johnson did pushups before her casket. Seeing that cracked my heart open again. https://t.co/DEfTjIyTXy
— AHylen ☮️ (@AHylen) September 25, 2020
https://twitter.com/CorkusBucksuth/status/1309513011594514433
https://twitter.com/rungirlrun07/status/1309513098378858496
Love this — would be fantastic if everyone that’s able to did a few pushups for #RBG https://t.co/ajY0E7Kxco
— Joseph Sakran (@JosephSakran) September 25, 2020
(Via New York Times)