WHEN PRESIDENTS FLEX THEIR MUSCLE : OUR LEADERS HAVE ALSO TAKEN CHARGE WHEN IT COMES TO ENGAGING IN EXERCISE.

Byline: Betty Kwong Daily News Staff Writer

Want to be president? Well, forget kissing babies. Strap on a pair of athletic shoes instead.

The race for political prominence has become more than a contest of wisdom, wit and words. Running for office these days means, literally, running for office.

Witness Richard Riordan playing this political game two weeks after he was elected Los Angeles mayor in 1993. He didn't pass up the rare honor of a one-on-one with President Clinton - even if it meant making idle chatter between gasps for air.

Truth be told, Riordan, then 63, couldn't keep up with the president's quick, yet seemingly effortless pace. (Clinton apparently talked the whole time about the landmarks and the people of Washington, D.C.) Our mayor had to take a breather halfway along that 4.5-mile jog between the White House and Capitol Hill.

It just goes to show: Running in political circles isn't what it used to be.

Executive power

A traveling exhibit about our presidents' fitness habits sets out to show just how far we've come on the road to better health.

``Flexing the Nation's Muscles: Presidents, Physical Fitness and Sports in the American Century'' traces the increasing emphasis on physical activity among the 20th century's presidents. The exhibit, on display now at the Hoover Library in West Branch, Iowa, is scheduled to come to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley from February to May 1998.

It wasn't until the 20th century, with the advent of more modern luxuries, that Americans needed to add regular exercise to their routines, said Clay Bauske, curator of the traveling exhibit and the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Mo.

We, the people, got so soft that Woodrow Wilson's personal physician, Dr. Cary Grayson, felt the need to share the White House Exercise Regimen - a fitness program of mostly stretches, it turns out - with a national magazine in March 1918, back when organized physical programs were a novelty.

``Dr. Grayson was trying to promote more activity among American men,'' Bauske said. ``Because, as World War I began, it became clear that they needed to be in better shape.''

Most 20th-century presidents have recognized the need to join the fitness revolution, becoming role models in the no-more-excuses school of exercise.

``When the presidents themselves participate regularly in physical activity,'' said Bauske, ``it says to the rest of the nation, `Look, if the president has time to take out of his day for regular activity, then everybody should do it.' ''

Here, now, is a look at some of the fitness habits of our presidents:

Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1909:

America kicked off this century by electing the youngest man yet to hold the office of United States presidency. Roosevelt, who was 42 when he was inaugurated, got involved with outdoor activities early in life as a way to overcome childhood asthma. He rode horses, hunted, hiked and boxed.

William Howard Taft, 1909-1913:

Taft, at 6-foot-2 and 330 pounds, was the largest of our nation's presidents and ``anything but physically fit,'' Bauske said.

Even so, he recognized the benefit of physical activity and became the first president to throw out the first pitch at baseball season openers. Taft also took up golf, a game he said was ideal for less-active people. ``When a man weighs 295 pounds,'' Taft said once, ``you have to give him some opportunity to make his legs and insides move.''

Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921:

Wilson was a relatively sedentary person before he took office. His personal physician changed everything. The doctor prescribed regularly scheduled meals and devised a series of daily exercises - mostly stretches - that Wilson could do in the privacy of his own office. He also was responsible for introducing Wilson to golf and regular walks.

Warren Harding, 1921-1923:

Harding continued the presidential tradition of golfing during his administration. He wasn't physically active in most regards, with walking and golf as his primary sources of exercise.

Calvin Coolidge, 1923-1929:

Coolidge was a rather taciturn president who, by the looks of some of his contributions to the White House workout room, preferred getting his exercise indoors. He used to wave around Indian clubs, a set of weights that look like stretched-out bowling pins, to exercise his arms. And he rode an electric horse - basically a barrel with a saddle that's a cross between those kiddie horse rides outside Kmarts and those mechanical bulls so popular in the 1980s.

Herbert Hoover, 1929-1933:

Hoover enjoyed many outdoor activities - fishing, hiking and horseback riding - but he is best known for contributing the game of Hoover ball to American sports. It was his physician who came up with the game that requires players to hoist a large, 8-pound medicine ball back and forth over a 6-foot-high net. The president and his cabinet regularly played Hoover ball on the South Lawn before breakfast to keep in shape.

There are still a few diehards who host Hoover ball national championships in Hoover's native state of Iowa, according to Bauske.

Franklin Roosevelt, 1933-1945

Roosevelt, who was stricken with polio as an adult, tried hard to hide his disability. In his search for the best way to regain strength in his legs, he discovered swimming. The first White House swimming pool was built for Roosevelt. He regularly played water polo and other water sports that required vigorous swimming. He gained so much upper body strength that, by holding onto a person on each side, he could move along as if he had no problem walking.

A bit of White House trivia: A floor was put over that pool during Richard Nixon's administration and the room was transformed into the space still used by Clinton to address the press.

Harry Truman, 1945-1953

Truman was a strong swimmer in his own right, but he's best known for being the first president to keep members of the press on their toes, literally.

Dressed for work in a suit, wingtip shoes and a walking cane (more of a fashion accessory than a pracitical necessity), he was regularly shown in movie newsreels taking early morning constitutionals, 1- to 1-1/2-mile walks that he would carry on at military speeds of 120 paces per minute.

``He would walk so fast that often the press that was trying to follow him would get really winded trying to keep up,'' Bauske said.

Dwight Eisenhower, 1953-1961

Eisenhower was the president most noted for his love of golf. He wore his golf shoes in and out of the Oval Office (where he had a putting green built) so often that his spikes left pits in the office floor.

It suited your political future to be a golfer during his reign. Then-Vice President Richard Nixon learned to like the game to gain Eisenhower's favor.

John Kennedy, 1961-1963

The Kennedy family's love of sports was well-documented - the first lady's passion for horseback riding, the president's love of sailing. And although the games of touch football at the family compound in Hyannis Port, Mass., were only casual fun and games, Kennedy - like Eisenhower before him, and Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan after - was a college football player.

Lyndon Johnson, 1963-1969

Johnson wasn't passionate about any one sport. Said Bauske: ``He did play golf, although not that often. He did swim, though not all that vigorously. He rode horses, but more for show than anything else.'' But when he walked - and that he did do often - he moved in long, rapid strides.

Richard Nixon, 1969-1974

Despite his youthful interest in football and his career-forwarding involvement with golf, Nixon made his mark on American physical fitness more as a sports fan than a sports participant. He religiously followed professional and college sports of all kinds. In response to a reporter's question in 1970, Nixon actually compiled a list of what he believed to be the all-time greatest baseball players. ``He knew what he was talking about,'' Bauske said.

Gerald Ford, 1974-1977

Of all the presidents, Ford was probably the most gifted natural athlete. He was an all-American football player in the 1950s. An outdoor swimming pool (replacing the indoor one paved over for use as the press room) was built for him so he could swim every day. He also ran every day - sometimes five miles, sometimes up to 12 miles. He was an avid skier and he frequently played tennis and golf.

Jimmy Carter, 1977-1981

Carter followed in Ford's footsteps when it came to vigorous exercise. He played softball and jogged. He even ran several 10-kilometer races. Carter still remains active building houses for Habitat for Humanity.

Ronald Reagan, 1981-1989

During his presidential years, Reagan often rode horses and did other hard physical labor during vacations at his ranch in Santa Barbara. But, as a young man, he was no slouch either. He played football, ran track and swam. In fact, he claimed to have saved 77 lives as a teen-age lifeguard in Dixon, Ill.

George Bush, 1989-1993

Like Ford, Bush participated in lots of sports - tennis, jogging, baseball, boating, hunting and fishing. But perhaps his most distinct contribution to White House sports was horseshoe pitching. While the horseshoe pit was installed in the Truman years, Bush was the one who often gathered staff around the pit for pickup games of horseshoe pitching.

Bill Clinton, 1993-present

He plays softball, he plays golf, but he's best known for his regular regimen of jogging. Although a one-lane track was built on the White House grounds during the Bush years, Clinton prefers running amongst the landmarks and people of Washington, D.C.

CAPTION(S):

8 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover) President (and ``Coach'') Harry Truman, one of many presidents who recognized the benefits of exercise, leads calisthetinics aboard the USS Missouri in 1947.

National Archives and Records Administration

(2--color--Cover) Bill Clinton

Associated Press

(3--color--Cover) Gerald Ford

Daily News

(4--color--Cover) Ronald Reagan

National Archives and Records Administration

(5) Gerald Ford, a college football player, may have been our most athletically gifted president.

(6) Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, left, had a hard time keeping on with President Clinton during a 1993 trip to Washington, D.C.

(7) Ronald Reagan enjoyed riding horses and was an active lifeguard during his teen-age years.

David Crane/Daily News

(8) George Bush was the president who brought the art of horseshoe pitching to the White House.