• Posted August 2, 2023

Fitness Routine Helps First Lady Jill Biden Build 'Inner Strength'

First Lady Jill Biden gains at least some of her inner strength by working on her physical strength.

Featured in the September issue of Women's Health magazine, Biden, 72, talks about waking at 5:45 a.m. most days to fit in a workout.

That includes jogging on the White House driveway, bicycle rides when getting away to the family beach home in Delaware and spin classes while she's traveling. Biden also rides a Peloton bike and takes barre classes.

“I need to be with myself and find inner strength so I can be strong for everyone else,” Biden said in the Women's Health interview.

Some of Biden's workouts are at SoulCycle studios in Washington, D.C., but she also squeezes in workouts while traveling. Those workouts have included taking a spin class with Akshata Murty, the wife of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, during her May trip to London for King Charles III's coronation, the Associated Press reported.

According to the AP, during a trip to the White House a month later, Sunak told President Joe Biden that “I gather our wives have even started to take spin classes together."

Jill Biden has always exercised, starting with roller skating as a kid, ice skating in college and swimming while pregnant with her daughter, Ashley. When Ashley was a teen, Biden would run, she wrote in her memoir.

“Whenever she and I would get into an argument, I'd put on those shoes to go running and calm myself down,” she wrote. “We argued so much, I became a marathon runner.”

Biden first finished the Marine Corps Marathon in 1998. “I was on an endorphin high for three days afterward!” she said.

The White House once had a jogging track, installed during Bill Clinton's terms, but it has been paved over, so Biden runs on the driveway to avoid security issues on city streets, the AP reported.

The First Lady also maintains a healthy diet, enjoying fish and vegetables. She packs lunch while teaching English and writing classes at Northern Virginia Community College, the AP reported.

Biden is the first U.S. First Lady featured on the cover of Women's Health.

More information

The National Council on Aging has more on how exercise helps a person age well.

SOURCES: Women's Health, Aug. 1, 2023; Associated Press, Aug. 1, 2023