I tried working out at a new gym the other day. I was using the leg press while staring blankly into the middle-distance (trying not to look directly at anyone) when I thought, “How long have people been doing this for anyways?”
The gym seems like a relatively new invention to me, a way for us to adapt to our lives full of modern-day conveniences (cars, grocery stores, laundry machines). For me, working out at the gym comes with a certain degree of guilt. I live in a place with abundant options for outdoor exercise - not to mention that sitting at a desk inside all day deprives me of opportunities to get a healthy amount of fresh air and sunlight. But when it comes down to it, the gym is often the most convenient place to get in a workout session.
It turns out that people have been thinking that for pretty much all of time - athletes have been using gyms since the days of ancient Greece where people (men) would train for sports and competitions. Not only were gyms used as a place to get in a daily workout, they were also bathhouses and, later on, became places where people could meet to have intellectual conversations about philosophy or … whatever else people chatted about in those days, I suppose. This brought up even more questions for me. Were the ancient Greeks, like me, lifting weights and trying not to make accidental eye contact with anyone? How did they avoid unwanted conversation (or romantic advances or unsolicited advice) before headphones were invented? But in the end - while they weren’t exactly doing Zumba or listening to a podcast on their AirPods - it sounds like many aspects of gym life have stayed the same.
Except for one thing.
What surprised me most from this small research project was the origin of the word itself. Gymnasium comes from gymnos, the Greek word for nudity. Apparently, athletes used to exercise in the nude.
Can you even imagine?