Earliest usages of gymtimidation

Gymtimidation appears to be a recent coniage meaning “the fear of working out in front of others.”

A 2017 entry in Urban Dictionary suggests that the term was coined by a famous operator of fitness centers but doesn’t provide any evidence. There are, however, earlier usage instances which don’t appear to be related to any operator.

Google Books don’t show any usage evidence.

Can anyone suggest when the expression was coined and possibly by whom?


Relatively widespread use of 'gymtimidation' in the popular press, as represented by the corpus at newspapers.com, appears to have started 01 Apr 2013 (paywalled link) with an ad for Planet Fitness in Poughkeepsie Journal (Poughkeepsie, New York) 01 Apr 2013, p A1, col 4:

   NO         NO
GYMTIMIDATION    LUNKS

no gymtimidation, no lunks

The caveat is that the newspaper corpus I used to determine the extent of use is not comprehensive, although it is large. Searches in other relevant corpora at English-Corpora.org did not produce earlier use of 'gymtimidation'.

However, the earliest use of forms of the term in the popular press was in the (paywalled) Elko Daily Free Press (Elko, Nevada) of 23 Jul 2002, p 15 col 1:

All those who are gym-timidated need, says Dart, is a little guidance.

The appearances in the popular press suggest that the word was in widespread spoken use among gym users and operators before it appeared in print.


The earliest use I can find is from a date not long before 27th December 2013 and appears in the article and in the accompanying video "Conquer your fear of the gym! Goodbye gymtimidation"

It is spoken by "Lorna", features editor at Cosmopolitan magazine close to the end of the video, which, one assumes, was filmed before the date of publication.

It seems to be a word that Lorna has coined.