Rahul Gandhi, the 56-year-old Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, recently talked about his idea of fitness in an Instagram AMA (Ask Me Anything). What he described isn't a fluff fitness regime or an exercise in vanity — it's a way of life. I think it’s imperative for surviving a genuinely brutal job: parliament sessions, court cases, constant political attacks, unrelenting media scrutiny.

Rahul’s daily hour of exercise — dedicated to building strength, aerobic capacity, and flexibility — is, in his words, part of "my work life," not a leisure activity. He means business about fitness, and does a host of things to stay at it: martial arts, swimming, running, and, more recently, yoga. These are like any other work obligation to him.

The routine matters less than persistence, according to him. Fitness, like most things worth having, compounds — small actions add up over time. He does his daily reckoning with himself whenever he can find the window, day or night. "If I have to do it at 11 at night, I'll do it at 11 at night," he said, matter-of-fact about it.

There's a second read here, though, sitting right alongside the first. In a politics run on imagery, a "fit, disciplined, outdoorsy" persona is also good politics — and an AMA aimed squarely at Gen-Z voters is itself an exercise in positioning, not just candour. It's hard to fully separate the two. Perhaps it doesn't have to be one or the other — the two can coexist, and probably do.

That same physical discipline is also what made his pad yatras possible — the 4,000-plus km Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanyakumari to Srinagar in 2022, and the 6,000-plus km Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Manipur to Mumbai in 2024.

Rahul is not the first to do it. Long walks like these do double duty: they let a politician connect with people directly, even in a digital age, and they function — as they do for many people in extremely high-pressure roles — as a way to think, process, and regulate stress.

So, wish him all the very best for a healthy life.