Lara Trump's Fitness Transformation Gets A Lot Of Attention
Lara Trump has undergone a "yuge!" transformation from a culinary school student who once had a side gig as a personal trainer to one of the Republican Party's most influential members. But one thing that hasn't changed about Lara is her obsession with fitness.
Lara often discusses her favorite workouts on her podcast, "The Right View." During one episode, she said she'd love to someday compete in the incredibly difficult Ironman triathlon in Kona, Hawaii. The race consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile run. Lara has been too busy orchestrating her controversial RNC takeover to train for a competition of that scale. However, perhaps she'll find some time to at least play golf now that she's done her father-in-law, Donald Trump, proud by becoming the co-chair of the Republican National Committee. Lara believes her golf game could almost be LPGA-worthy with a little practice, but she told her podcast listeners that Donald has never invited her to play a round with him. It also seems doubtful that he'd accept an invitation from Lara to play one of her favorite sports: beach volleyball. "You can get a tan because you're in a bathing suit, which I'm all about. I know I should be too old to be getting sun, but I still like it," she said on "The Right View." Age also hasn't stopped Lara from getting on the back of a horse, running a half-marathon, and trying an entirely new sport.
The equestrian has discovered that riding horses is dangerous
On "The Right View," Lara Trump revealed that she fell in love with horseback riding while growing up in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. A neighbor who owned a few horses used to let her come over and ride, but apparently she wasn't getting enough time in the saddle. "I begged my parents for riding lessons," she recalled. Her parents agreed to pay for the lessons, even though Lara had injured her arm during one visit to her neighbor's barn. "They had to reset my elbow ... with no anesthesia or anything," she said on her podcast.
While answering fans' questions on "The Right View," Lara revealed that she used to participate in hunter/jumper competitions, which require riders to guide their horses through courses with obstacles they must jump over. Falling off a horse while it's leaping into the air can cause devastating injuries — such as the two broken wrists Lara suffered not long before her 2014 wedding. She told Grace Ormonde Wedding Style that she had to wear casts when she and Eric Trump partied with their loved ones at their wedding reception, though she covered them up with a pair of stylish gloves. Instead of deterring her from riding, the experience made her determined to get back on a horse's back. "I wouldn't take back one day of riding — stuff happens," she wrote on Instagram. "I will ride again and it will be better than ever."
Her cheerleading experience inspired her to write a book
While Lara Trump loved horseback riding, another sport temporarily supplanted it when she got a bit older. "There came a time in my life where I had to choose between cheerleading, which is also expensive, and horseback riding," she said on "The Right View." She chose the latter, but at first, it seemed her dream of shaking pom-poms on the sidelines would be shattered before she had to pay for a pair. "I tried out for the JV cheerleading team — and I was devastated when I did not make the team," she recalled to Fox News. A little pep talk from her father inspired her to keep practicing, and she was ready to bring it on when she tried out again a year later. By then, she'd become so good that she made varsity.
According to Trump, her experience working hard and excelling at something served as the inspiration for the children's book she published in 2024, "The Never-Give-Up Pup." She said of its message, "I thought it was a great thing to relate to kids, that you work hard, do your best — and don't worry about the rest."
Trump continued cheerleading competitively in college as a member of North Carolina State University's Wolfpack squad. On Instagram, she shared a throwback photo of the team forming an impressive pyramid. Lara revealed that it was taken at the NCA College Nationals in Daytona.
How Lara Trump discovered her passion for running
Lara Trump didn't know that she had a long-distance runner lurking inside her until it was awakened during cheer training in high school. "We had done something that upset our coach, so she made us run five miles," Lara recalled on "The Right View." She was the only member of the squad who didn't have to stop and walk, and she was surprised by how much endurance she had. She soon became hooked on that so-called runner's high. When talking about the feeling, she couldn't resist delivering a low blow to the son of Donald Trump's presidential rival. "I guess it's better to be addicted to working out than other things. You can just ask Hunter Biden about that," she said.
Lara ran cross country in college, and she would eventually discover that she could run much farther than five miles. In a 2015 Instagram post, she revealed that it took her just over four hours to complete the 26.2-mile New York City Marathon. She also regularly competes in triathlons. One of her favorites seems to be the Las Olas Triathlon in Fort Lauderdale. It consists of a half-mile swim, an 18.5-mile bike ride, and a six-mile run. Lara's finishing time in 2016 was 2:28:05. She especially likes training for the biking segments. "There's an element of danger when you ride fast and I think I like to be a little scared," she said in an interview for The Trump Organization website.
What Eric Trump thinks about his wife competing while pregnant
When Lara Trump was pregnant with her first child in 2017, she competed in the Las Olas Triathlon. "She is nutty," Eric Trump told Westchester magazine of his wife's refusal to let a baby bump become a speed bump in her pursuit of athletic glory. Throughout her pregnancy, Lara also continued hitting the gym with her personal trainer, Michael Maloney. She was still living in New York at the time, so fans can catch glimpses of the view from the Trump Tower gym in the workout videos that she posted on Instagram. In an August 2017 video, she's doing walking lunges with a large medicine ball.
A month later, Lara was still sweating it out and not-so-patiently waiting to give birth. "Hoping the workout inspires this baby to make an appearance!!" she captioned another gym video. Some Instagram users criticized her for laboring so hard before going into labor, earning her some support from the magazine Redbook in the form of an article titled "Stop Shaming Lara Trump's Baby Bump — It's None of Your Business."
Lara and Eric welcomed their son, Eric "Luke" Trump, in September 2017. Less than three months later, he joined his mom's cheering section when she ran the 13.1-mile Palm Beaches Half Marathon. In her Trump Organization interview, Lara admitted that she benefits from having a nanny who can take care of her kids when she wants to train for an event.
Why she was reluctant to try CrossFit
Lara Trump's fitness philosophy is to always keep things fresh. "I like to change up my workout as often as possible so that I don't get bored and my body doesn't stop responding," she told The Trump Organization. In addition to training for triathlons and working out at the gym, her workout repertoire includes Pilates classes. She's also competed in extreme obstacle course events such as Tough Mudder and Spartan races.
While Trump's love of a difficult physical challenge might make CrossFit training seem like her ideal workout, she was hesitant to join a CrossFit gym. "I didn't want to be one of those CrossFit people. I was like, 'Those CrossFit people are a little intense and a little crazy. It's a little cult-like," she said on "The Right View." However, she got hooked when a friend invited her to work out at a CrossFit gym without telling her that it was a CrossFit gym.
Now, Trump often posts videos on Instagram of her high-intensity workouts with her coach, who is a professional CrossFit athlete and UFC combat instructor. Her followers can watch her flipping a heavy bag end-over-end and running downstairs while holding a mace over her head. In one post, she broke down one of her brutal workouts: "1-mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 air squats, and a 1-mile run ... with a weighted vest (for most of it)."