The Obamas’ workout routine
By MICHAEL SNEED msneed@suntimes.com February 7, 2012 1:32AM
First lady Michelle Obama uses a jump- rope during exercise activities at an event highlighting the work of the Physical Fitness Council, Wednesday, June 23, 2010, at the Columbia Heights Education Campus Bell Multicultural High School in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
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Updated: March 8, 2012 8:04AM
First lady Michelle Obama is buff and tuff stuff.
Thus, the 25 push-ups Mrs. Obama performed on TV last week is paltry compared to her physical prowess, Sneed hears.
“She can do double that number of push-ups,” said Chicagoan Cornell McClellan, the Obamas’ personal trainer who includes boxing, weightlifting, jumping rope and running in the first couple’s exercise routine.
So here’s what McClellan shared with Sneed:
◆ The Obamas’ least favorite exercise is “burpees,” squat thrusts going from a jump to a push-up position.
◆ President Barack Obama can easily bench-press his body weight — which McClellan estimates to be around 180 pounds.
◆ The entire “daily” exercise tab is paid for personally by the Obamas. “Everything they do personally, they pay for personally,” he said.
◆ The regular Obama sessions aren’t conducted at the White House. The location is top secret.
◆ The president has definitely stopped smoking. “It’s no longer an issue,” said McClellan.
◆ The President “never shows signs of stress during his workouts,” said McClellan. “I’m as amazed as everyone else how well he keeps it together.”
◆ Mayor Rahm Emanuel never worked out with McClellan when Rahm was White House chief of staff. “He did his own thing; he is very fit,” said McClellan, who also worked out with President Obama’s mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, and former White House senior strategist David Axelrod.
◆ The one who got away: McClellan never got former White House chief of staff Bill Daley into the gym. “We talked about it, but he never got a chance.”
Hail to the chief?
What a naughty boy!
President John F. Kennedy’s legendary marital infidelity is no shocker, but a new kiss and tell book: Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath, by Mimi Alford Beardlsey, 69, claims JFK bedded her when she was a 19-year-old White House staffer — and the location of the voluntary but surprising seduction took place on first lady Jackie Kennedy’s bed while enveloped in the scent of JFK’s 4711 cologne.
◆ To wit: Adding a new nail to the Camelot coffin, Alford claims she wound up having an 18-month affair with JFK, whom she called “Mr. President,” and that “Mr. President” may have bedded her but never kissed her. She still doesn’t know how she got hired in the first place, because she had no sponsor.
◆ Translation? Well, the president must have seen her, desired her and hired her.
Whack attack . . .
Credit CNN’s Anderson Cooper for getting comedian Joan River’s daughter, Melissa, to admit she staged an intervention to try to get her mother to stop getting plastic surgery. It sure looks like Cooper’s famous mom, Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper, has paid a visit to the knife a few times.
Zipping the Lip . . .
Top Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen, who did not zip her Latin lip while defending her hubby Tom Brady’s inability to catch and throw at the same time on Super Bowl Sunday, should probably have followed the lead of the ever-stoic Callista Gingrich, who nods, smiles, stands by her man like a pillar of salt and keeps her mouth shut — making it impossible for the press to print her every word.
Royal dog house . . .
Pup place: At last peek, the Brit betting firm Ladbrokes were offering odds of 10-to-1 on Kate Middleton Windsor’s new black cocker spaniel pup being named “Charlie;” 33-to-1 on being named “Bouncer” and 66-to-1 being named “Fenton.” Presumably the pup is a male.
A Mitt Memo . . .
The name game: The news media corps assigned to cover GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, who was just given Secret Service protection, have apparently given Mitt their own “code name.”
◆ Mitt’s moniker: “Stallion.”
Got any other ideas?!
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