Gym refers to facilities meant for indoor sports or exercise. Short for gymnasium, the word is a derivative of gymnos, which in Greek means naked. In ancient Greece, it was a place assigned for the male youth of the country, for activities like physical education, studies or bathing. All these were traditionally performed naked.

In Germany, gyms were a product of Turnplatz, an area for gymnasts that was backed by the educator Friedrich Jahn and the Turners, a gymnastic-cum-political movement of the nineteenth century. In the United States, the Turners flourished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. However, it was in 1848, in Cincinnati, that the first such group was formed. The Turners constructed gymnasiums in many cities, especially those that had German-American populations.

There is a thought to suggest that gymnasiums were present in the United States a long time before the Turner movement. Public gymnasiums cropped up in the 1820s and the 1830s before they were surpassed by the YMCA and college gymnasiums, the first of which was possibly Harvard in 1820. Also, the American military came up with their own gym during that era.

It was in the 1920s that gymnasiums proliferated in the United States. Today, it is almost imperative for every college to have its own gymnasium. These gyms are used for physical education programs and sporting activities.

At present, the word gymnasium has taken a broader meaning. With the growth in public awareness and an ever-increasing need for good health, the word is also used an alternative for health clubs. Gyms are now havens with multi-use facilities that offer a gamut of physical and sporting activities, accompanied by other luxuries like massages, spas etc. Also, nowadays there is a trend of having personal home gyms, replete with the facilities that you normally get to see in public gyms.