Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was hospitalized in 1970 with a bout of pneumonia, President Richard Nixon sent a note asking about his medical status, an unsubtle way of divining when Marshall might retire or die.

Marshall let the hospital send Nixon his records, but the justice wrote “Not Yet” in big letters on the folder. He died 23 years later, at the age of 84.

President Donald Trump has apparently set similar sights on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as he hopes to nominate three more justices during his tenure. “What does she weigh? 60 pounds?” Trump told an unnamed source recently, according to Axios. (He also put Anthony Kennedy and Sonia Sotomayor on his list, saying Sotomayor's health was “no good” because of her diabetes, Axios reported.)

It is unlikely that the 84-year-old Ginsburg has responded to Trump's comment directly, but her equivalent of “Not Yet” may be a book just published, authored by Ginsburg's physical trainer, Bryant Johnson.

Titled “The RBG Workout: How She Stays Strong … and You Can Too!” the book, complete with illustrations, spells out in an accessible way the intense workout Ginsburg has mastered since 1999 after her bout with colorectal cancer. Stretching, squatting, push-ups and planks are among the techniques she has used to regain her strength, stamina and bone density. In anticipation of the book's publication, several journalists tried to follow the program, with mixed results.

“At a pace I could manage, Bryant restored my energy as I worked my way back to good health,” Ginsburg wrote in a foreword to the book. After treatment for her second cancer—pancreatic cancer—in 2009, she resumed her workouts “as soon as I could.” She wrote, “Step by step, Bryant restored my energy, adding planks as well as push-ups to my regimen.”

Asked in February to name the most important person in her life, Ginsburg said, “my personal trainer.”

Johnson, who works in the clerk's office of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, became a certified trainer in 1997, and began helping the judges there with a side business he calls “Body Justice.” Among the district judges he worked with are Thomas Hogan, Ellen Huvelle, Emmet Sullivan and Gladys Kessler.

Kessler recommended Johnson to Ginsburg, and soon he was making the trip up Capitol Hill to the Supreme Court's gym a couple of times a week to assist her. Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan have also benefited from his skills.

“Any judge should be familiar with the Latin term habeas corpus—literally, you have the body,” Johnson wrote in his book. “However, many of them still needed to be reminded that you have a body, and in order for it to take care of you, you have to take care of it.”

He added, “Whatever you do, do something. Whether you're a Supreme Court justice, a clerk, or a janitor, exercise is the great equalizer.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was hospitalized in 1970 with a bout of pneumonia, President Richard Nixon sent a note asking about his medical status, an unsubtle way of divining when Marshall might retire or die.

Marshall let the hospital send Nixon his records, but the justice wrote “Not Yet” in big letters on the folder. He died 23 years later, at the age of 84.

President Donald Trump has apparently set similar sights on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as he hopes to nominate three more justices during his tenure. “What does she weigh? 60 pounds?” Trump told an unnamed source recently, according to Axios. (He also put Anthony Kennedy and Sonia Sotomayor on his list, saying Sotomayor's health was “no good” because of her diabetes, Axios reported.)

It is unlikely that the 84-year-old Ginsburg has responded to Trump's comment directly, but her equivalent of “Not Yet” may be a book just published, authored by Ginsburg's physical trainer, Bryant Johnson.

Titled “The RBG Workout: How She Stays Strong … and You Can Too!” the book, complete with illustrations, spells out in an accessible way the intense workout Ginsburg has mastered since 1999 after her bout with colorectal cancer. Stretching, squatting, push-ups and planks are among the techniques she has used to regain her strength, stamina and bone density. In anticipation of the book's publication, several journalists tried to follow the program, with mixed results.

“At a pace I could manage, Bryant restored my energy as I worked my way back to good health,” Ginsburg wrote in a foreword to the book. After treatment for her second cancer—pancreatic cancer—in 2009, she resumed her workouts “as soon as I could.” She wrote, “Step by step, Bryant restored my energy, adding planks as well as push-ups to my regimen.”

Asked in February to name the most important person in her life, Ginsburg said, “my personal trainer.”

Johnson, who works in the clerk's office of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, became a certified trainer in 1997, and began helping the judges there with a side business he calls “Body Justice.” Among the district judges he worked with are Thomas Hogan, Ellen Huvelle, Emmet Sullivan and Gladys Kessler.

Kessler recommended Johnson to Ginsburg, and soon he was making the trip up Capitol Hill to the Supreme Court's gym a couple of times a week to assist her. Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan have also benefited from his skills.

“Any judge should be familiar with the Latin term habeas corpus—literally, you have the body,” Johnson wrote in his book. “However, many of them still needed to be reminded that you have a body, and in order for it to take care of you, you have to take care of it.”

He added, “Whatever you do, do something. Whether you're a Supreme Court justice, a clerk, or a janitor, exercise is the great equalizer.”