Fear of death or disease aside, the president’s attitude toward his own health is important inasmuch as it can represent his deeper beliefs, which stand in for the values of the country as a whole. A commitment to working out suggests self-control, discipline, and a willingness to exert oneself in pursuit of a goal—ideas that align with the good old-fashioned American belief in meritocracy, however illusory.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, upon taking office, many recent presidents had special fitness-related requests and routines. Courted by two NFL teams while in college, Gerald Ford maintained his fitness in office with daily swims in the pool he had built on the White House grounds. A baseball player in his youth, George H.W. Bush dabbled in all kinds of sports as president, particularly running. Bill Clinton installed a jogging track on the South Lawn but preferred to run outside the White House gates, much to the chagrin of the Secret Service (admittedly, he ended more than one run at McDonald’s). George W. Bush liked mountain biking and was another avid runner, going so far as to put a treadmill on Air Force One so he’d never have to skip a workout.

Then there was Barack Obama, who started most days with a 45-minute weights-and-cardio session. In 2009, the 44th president had hoops and basketball lines added to the tennis court at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and regularly invited friends, and even former NBA players, to informal scrimmages. Exercise was not his only healthy habit. A famously disciplined eater, Obama managed to lose a few pounds while doing perhaps the world’s most demanding job. Whether he completely kicked a decades-long smoking habit has been debated, but he’s said to have transformed the health of others in the White House for the better, stocking the building with healthy food, encouraging staffers to participate in group fitness challenges, and offering the services of his own personal trainer.

Far from being insignificant activities squeezed into the cracks of their political lives, the sporting lives of past presidents have often been taken as symbols of their character and even their political beliefs. Roosevelt clearly practiced the “strenuous life” of “healthy combativeness” he preached in his speeches, and his willingness to enter a boxing ring was of a piece with the military preparedness he sought for America. George W. Bush talked about running in grand terms, encouraging others to sweat “for the good of their own health and for the good of the health of the nation.” Throughout Obama’s campaign, some argued that “the skinny kid with a funny name” used his love of basketball to counter claims that he was un-American. Others have compared Obama-the-basketball-player with Obama-the-politician: competitive, inclusive, pragmatic, likely to go left.