single word requests - What do we call people who go to the gym?


A group of people who regularly attend gym classes or work-out. What are they called? Is there a single-word for this particular group?


Apart from my calling them fanatics, mad (BrEng)/crazy (AmEng), body-obsessed, vain or dull.


Seriously, what are they? Devotees? Learners? Practitioners?


I'd also appreciate any equivalent popular/recognized expressions that haven't yet entered any standard dictionary but have been buzzing around for a few years.


Trivia
In Italian, a gym is called palestra. Italians are very body conscious and tend to look after themselves very well, in fact it is true to say that it's quite difficult to find overweight, unattractive, or unfit men or women who attend these almost daily sessions. The men, in particular, can get carried away and so the expression palestrato has been coined in the Italian language. A palestrato is someone who frequently attends the gym, but is also an exhibitionist, self-obsessed, extremely vain, and very very muscular.



Answer



A term that I have heard, that seems to be widely accepted, and that I would use myself, is simply "gym goer". I don't think you'll find anything better than that, if you want a generic and neutral term. Google has 704,000 hits for it.


(I'm not a native English speaker, but I have been to the gym twice this week and plan on a third time, and I frequent web sites about strength training.)


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