"I take care of my body above all else; diet, exercise, supplements, positive thinking. Scientists believe that the first human being who will live a hundred and fifty years has already been born. I believe I am that human being."
— Chris Traeger, Parks and Recreation
As a general rule, a person needs to exercise at least 30 minutes a day to maintain good health... but why stop at a mere half an hour when you can be doing it at every waking moment? For such characters, fitness and exercise is life, and the whole world is their own personal gym.
A fitness nut is someone who is obsessed with working out, whether they're doing this for health, bodybuilding, or simply because they genuinely enjoy the exercise. These people likely carry around weights wherever they go, and might randomly break into exercise (jogging, weight-lifting, etc.) whenever they get idle. They might also live on an extremely strict, high-protein, fat-and-carb-free, "healthy" diet, and look down on people who aren't as health conscious—regarding them as lazy and gluttonous slobs. If a male fitness nut goes to the beach, he might act like a Muscle Beach Bum who is overeager to show off the results of his intensive training regimen.
While the character's excessive obsession with exercise is usually treated as just a funny quirk, it may also be used to highlight some sort of mental health issues—especially insecurities regarding their body image, e.g. feeling too fat, or self-conscious about their lack of muscles.
If the fitness obsession is portrayed as something positive, it may be a part of A Weighty Aesop to highlight why keeping health is important.
Super-Trope to Gym Bunny, a stereotype about gay men who are always working out for vanity's sake. May also overlap with Academic Athlete, Jerk Jock, Lovable Jock, Dumb Muscle, or Passionate Sports Girl.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?: Most of the trainers and the regular members of the Silverman Gym are very hardcore bodybuilders whose sole purpose in life is to achieve perfect musculature.
- i tell c: Sakon Futatsuki is explicitly described as a fitness nut (contrasting his brother's Sweet Tooth) who carries dumbbells with him everywhere he goes, which he uses to work out during mealtimes.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: In Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan story "The Run", Yoma Hashimoto is a model who becomes increasingly obsessed with his personal fitness after signing up for a gym membership as part of an acting gig. He screams at his girlfriend for trying to "poison" him with his favorite spaghetti dish, is irritated by the delivery man interrupting his sleep by ringing the doorbell, and is furious with another gym-goer who booked his trainer before him. By the end of the story, he murders all of them for daring to interrupt his fitness regimen and tries to do the same to Rohan.
- Kengan Ashura has Julius Reinhold, a hulking man-mountain who is described as a "martyr of muscles". He obtained his extreme bulk thanks to special doping and has spent most of his life afterwards honing his strength and developing his muscles further. In Omega, he's reached a point where he can control his individual muscle fibers and flex them to their maximum limit and simultaneously release them to unleash an explosive strike that can deflect any redirection moves and take down someone larger than he is in a single hit.
- Love After World Domination: Fudo Aikawa is fully dedicated to physical fitness, training regimens, and protein bars. The only thing that can (almost) take his mind off of fitness is Desumi. His idea of a first date is doing an intense workout with her (fortunately, she enjoys it).
- MARRIAGETOXIN: Exaggerated with Shiori's uncle, who is almost never not lifting weights or doing some other workout (like pull-ups) in all of his on-screen appearances. He even has a smartphone case that weighs 10 kg, so he's still exercising his muscles even when he's not actively working out.
Comic Books
- While not as extreme as other examples, Spider-Man character Eddie Brock does like to work out. In Venom: On Trial, Kasady mentions that Brock was always doing sit-ups and the like when they were cell mates, and in the 1994 animated Spider-Man series, Peter once tracked down Eddie through his home gym equipment.
Fan Works
- With This Ring: Kratos is the Greek god of strength, and everyone who attends his gym is serious about body-building. The receptionist takes one look at Paul — whose body is constantly maintained at his ideal self-image by his power ring — and judges that he's too weedy to belong while curling weights with one arm that for most people would require a two-handed barbell. Walking through the gym, Paul observes that the men there are "beefier than most cattle." They are, however, strict about forbidding steroids.
Film—Animation
- Despicable Me 2: Gru gets fixed up on a blind date with a health nut who refers to herself in the third person. She says, "Fitness is very important to Shannon," and proceeds to do sit-ups while they're waiting for their meal in a fancy restaurant.
Film—Live-Action
- American Psycho: Patrick Bateman is beyond obsessed with maintaining a perfect physique. His workout routine includes jump rope, calisthenics, and stomach crunches ("I can do a thousand"). When having sex, he notably seems more interested in his own body than his partners'.
- Back to the Future Part III has Doc regale a saloon of regulars about the nature of the future. After describing the advent of the automobile, a patron asks if people walk anymore. He says that they do, but for recreation. They laugh over the concept of walking and running for fun.
- The antagonist of DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story, White Goodman, is a fitness fanatic who owns a multimillion gym company. Prior to entering the dodgeball tournament, he was often seen either lifting weights with his assistant Me'Shell or subjecting himself to over-the-top aversion therapy against junk food. Fitting the more negative stereotypes associated with this trope, he's portrayed as shallow and condescending, saying in his commercials that the biggest flaw with ugly and fat people is that they don't hate themselves enough. He eventually becomes obese at the end of the film after losing the tournament and his company to the protagonist.
- Legally Blonde: Brooke Windham built her empire on this as an exercise video star, which is what makes her alibi for her husband's murder — that she was getting liposuction — so damning that she refuses to admit it, even if she'll go to jail. Elle herself used the videos at one point and tries to use this to defend Brooke, leading to this quote:
Elle: Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don't shoot their husbands.
Literature
- American Psycho: Patrick Bateman is beyond obsessed with maintaining a perfect physique, even up to the brand of mineral water he drinks while doing calisthenics.
- Dean Koontz's Frankenstein: Roy Pribeaux in Book One, who moonlights as the Serial Killer The Surgeon, delusionally believes he's the most attractive man on the planet and maintains an obsessive diet, exercise, and self-care routine that he theorizes will eventually make him age backwards and stop his body from producing waste. It sure as shit doesn't help him when he runs into the inhuman Harker, who casually breaks Roy's back and throws him off a building.
- The Witch of Knightcharm: One of the rookie students at an evil Wizarding School, Rosa Montaldo, shows signs of this. No sooner are all the new witches brought together than Rosa decides to begin doing sets of push-ups for no apparent reason. Rosa is also noticeably more athletic than most of the other rookies (many of whom seem to expect that magic, as opposed to muscles, is what they need to win fights).
Live-Action TV
- The Good Place: Parodied and exploited with Chris Baker, the Bad Place Torturer who poses as Eleanor's soulmate in Good Place Attempt #2. He constantly avoids Eleanor's questions by stripping off his shirt and going to the gym.
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
- Zigzagged by Mac, who sees himself as the Gang's muscle and is obsessed with bodybuilders and gyms. His own health in the early seasons is a mess (including a long stretch of obesity from overeating and alcoholism), and his love of "beefcakes" is because of being an Armored Closet Gay. After he finally comes out as gay, he plays this trope straight and becomes very fit and muscular.
- Subverted by Dennis, who believes in being vigilant about his body as he grows older and is obsessed with maintaining his fitness; his actual dietary habits are so poor he sometimes passes out from starvation, and he has a laundry list of health problems from overstressing.
- Jane the Virgin: Downplayed Trope, but Rafael works out a lot. After going to the gym with him once in "Chapter 49", Michael thinks Rafael is kind of slutty and vain in this way—that he's doing it for Mr. Fanservice and Workout Fanservice reasons. That's not entirely untrue, but Raf later clarifies that there's another, more sympatric reason too: "I had cancer. That's why I'm so focused now. I like controlling my health."
- LazyTown: Sportacus spends every day and all day exercising, and he doesn't know how to do pretty much anything else.
- My Mad Fat Diary: Tix is a small and underweight 15-year-old girl and Rae's closest friend at the psychiatric hospital. Due to an unspecified mental illness related to Weight Woe, Tix is constantly working out, doing cardio, and self-starving, especially when she feels stressed. She spends most of the first series struggling to deal with her compulsive need to work out, eventually collapsing and being admitted into the hospital at the end of series 1. At the start of series 2, it's revealed Tix suffered a heart attack while in the hospital and died.
- Odd Squad: Coach O, an agent of the Athletics and Conflict Resolution department at Precinct 13579, is a Drill Sergeant Nasty who takes the "Athletics" part of his job description more seriously than the "Conflict Resolution" part. He often confuses regular agents for athletes on Odd Squad sports teams as a result of his poor memory and treats the art of competition like an actual sport. He even treats things like squats, sweat, and never missing a pass from a basketball as tips people can use to have a happy life. There is rarely ever a moment where he is onscreen that doesn't involve sports in some way or another.
- Chris Traeger from Parks and Recreation. Health-obsessed to an extreme, he considers a 10k run a "light" exercise, takes insane amounts of vitamins, and eats very carefully. This likely stems from the fact that he was a sickly baby who wasn't supposed to survive his early years. This is deconstructed in a number of episodes where he has a bad relationship with his own mortality, as he emotionally implodes when he gets sick or reminded he is still a man in his forties.
- Dr. Cox from Scrubs keeps himself in pretty good shape through regular exercise. In one episode, Turk, who was naturally athletic through high school and college, found himself gaining weight due to his work schedule. In an effort to slim down for his girlfriend, he started exercising with Cox but found himself unable to work, exercise, and have quality time with her, a reality that Cox is forced to admit is a real issue.
Theatre
- Beetlejuice: Beetlejuice mocks this trope in "The Whole Being Dead Thing", pointing out that no amount of exercise or healthy living will put off death forever.
Nobody is bullet-proof
"I work out, I eat clean!"
Jesus, pass the Dramamine
Video Games
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons features a number of animal villagers whose dialogue and behavior are procedurally generated from their respective combinations of 8 personality types and 6 hobbies. Villagers with the "Jock" personality will talk your ears off about weight-lifting and muscle-building, while the "Fitness" hobby makes a villager pump iron outdoors on every occasion. The 37 villagers who combine a Jock personality with a Fitness hobby thus fall squarely under this trope.
- Banjo-Tooie has Mr. Fit, who resides in Cloud Cuckoo Land. He is an aardvark who wears an athletic outfit and challenges Banjo and Kazooie to three different events if they want to get a Jiggy from him. In the first event, the High Jump, Banjo and Kazooie must jump over the high bar, set to the maximum height (which requires the Springy Step Shoes). In the second event, the Sack Race, Banjo must use the Sack Pack move to race through a thorny field. In the third and final event, Kazooie must race to the finish line, using the Turbo Trainers to run fast. Once you win the Jiggy, a defeated Mr. Fit says he's off to the gym to train for next season.
- Cookie Run has Muscle Cookie. He's obsessed with working out and bragging about his muscles. His Combi pet is a weight and he has protein powder making up a majority of his dough recipe.
- Dead Rising 3 has the psychopath, Jherii Gallo, a female bodybuilder so obsessed with winning "Miss Gigantic California" that she did nothing but work out in the gym, completely ignoring the zombie outbreak outside.
- Celliera from Dragalia Lost serves as the Halidom's fitness instructor, and though she's no Drill Sergeant Nasty, she's very passionate about her position. Most of her appearances consist of her trying to rope other residents into one of her training sessions, or leading one of the training sessions.
- Death Road to Canada: A potential encounter at trader camps is the Fitness Instructor, who can train the group to improve stamina.
This woman is decked out in sweatbands, limb warmers, and garish exercise clothes.
"Only the fittest will survive in this zombie-filled world! I can help you get fit, fast!"
She's been continuously running in place this whole time. - Dicey Dungeons: Audrey, one of the bosses of the game. She's a very large, very musclebound (from the waist-up, anyway) woman who is always dressed in sweat-stained workout gear, with a weight in each hand. Her in-game bio lists her hobbies as "Deadlifting, bench presses, pilates, HIIT, kettlebells", and says her favorite food is protein shakes.
- One of the potential romantic partners from the Dating Sim Dream Daddy is Craig, the main character's former college roommate. In their college days, Craig was known for Wacky Fratboy Hijinx, drinking endless amounts of beer (so much so that he was known as "keg stand Craig"), and eating bad food. The main character is astonished to see Craig in the present day, where Craig is a hardcore healthy lifestyle/diet kind of guy and a gym nut. Craig explains that the birth of his daughters made him realize exactly how bad his old lifestyle was and that he might lose time with them and they might grow up without a father if living that way led him to a premature demise, so he wound up going to the other extreme instead.
- In Love & Pies, Attorney Raj always goes for a run in his fitness clothes whenever he drops by the café. One time he visits, he's in the middle of a 5k run, with 2k more to go.
- Mass Effect 3: Lieutenant James Vega is ostensibly in charge of maintaining the Normandy's weapon locker, but he's set up weight machines and a chin-up bar in the hanger and as Lieutenant Steve Cortez says, he seems to spend more time on them than actually working on the ship's firearms. In Citadel, there's even an interaction with him where he challenges Shepard to beat his chin-up record via quick-time event.
- Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time has the Cardio Zombie, a muscular zombie who is always running on a treadmill and throws boosting brains at other zombies. His Almanac entry lampshades his healthy lifestyle and even has him comment that the other zombies should be more health-conscious.
Almanac: Cardio Zombie is all about health, healthiness, and healthy lifestyles. He refuses to consume carbs, downing nothing but high-protein brains for every meal. In his opinion, other zombies really need to up their game. NO EXCUSES!
- Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes has the aptly-named Health-Nut, a well-built walnut who is always lifting a dumbbell made from two smaller nuts and has the ability to deal damage depending on his current amount of health, ironically rendering any strength he gains mute. His description also jokes about his healthy lifestyle.
- In Potion Permit, Derrek is obsessed with keeping himself fit for his job as police officer and is often seen lifting weights even while walking outside. This comes to a head when he ends up being late for work because he was so focused in trying to make 1,000 reps for the day, prompting the Chemist to gently remind him to manage his time and stop overexerting himself.
- Raffina from Puyo Puyo may not look the part, but she's revealed to take her athletics very seriously in the novel "Amitie and the Mysterious Egg". She's the one calling the shots trying to train Amitie's pet bird Tama, brings her personal free weight collection to school that same day, and partakes in a high-protein diet that she tries to feed Tama with. Keep in mind that she's the one Un-Sorcerer in a magic school, who compensates her weak magic by performing martial arts to cast her spells aided by a magic-amplifying pouch.
- In Yo-kai Watch, Sgt. Burly is a fitness-obsessed personal trainer who wants nothing more than to help people around him feel the burn. When he Inspirits people, he turns them into fitness nuts. Among Yo-kai, he adopts a Drill Sergeant Nasty persona but is actually a kind and considerate guy, so he's actually very popular at his job in the Yo-kai World.
Visual Novels
- Aquarium: Theo regularly exercises to become a strong person, as he believes that's what his father expects of him. Aqua finds his muscles fascinating.
Web Comics
- Sleepless Domain: Heartful Punch leads her own gym group (HP's Training Club) and is definitely among the more physically active girls, given that her powers consist mainly of having hearts come out when she punches things. Her unusual diet
does get commented upon.
Western Animation
- Animaniacs (2020): The new CEO of Warner Bros. in the reboot series, Nora Rita Norita, very much is a fitness nut, even outfitting her office with exercise equipment so that she can keep exercising while on the clock.
- Close Enough: Josh becomes this in the episode "Josh Gets Shredded". He initially joined a gym so he could play with his daughter Candice without throwing his back out, but over time, he started to neglect his family and prioritized getting stronger. He momentarily broke out of this mindset after completing the ultimate workout and becoming an "Absolute Unit", making his top priority playing "King Kong" with Candice. However, this only lasted until his watch told him to go back to the gym, until Candice was able to convince him that time spent together is what's really important, breaking Josh from this habit for good. Well, that, and losing all his gains from missing out on his workouts while tranquilized.
- Family Guy: Brian becomes this in "The Book of Joe" after getting hooked on jogging. He exercises non-stop and becomes so obsessed with keeping fit that he looks down on Stewie for eating bread.
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: "Room with a Feud" features an imaginary friend named Peanut Butter, who is always seen wearing a purple track suit. Bloo, Wilt, Eduardo and Coco are all exhausted after chasing him around the house for 45 minutes, but Peanut Butter is still in great shape and thanks the imaginary friends for such a wonderful workout, saying they should do it every day.
- Get Ace: Mrs. McDougal, who's in her workout gear 24/7, seems to make a living as a fitness instructor, and only serves her children terrible-tasting nutritious food.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: Mighty Moe is a health guru who does absolutely everything he can to stay healthy. He's so successful at this that every year Grim is forced to bestow upon him bonus years, effectively extending his life indefinitely. Needless to say, this annoys the Reaper to no end, especially since Moe is quite smug about the accomplishment. So much so that he's decided to write a book on the subject, potentially putting Grim out of business.
- King of the Hill: Bill falls under the influence of a trio of these during an episode where he buys a home gym in order to get in shape for an army physical. They're very much meatheads obsessed with pumping their muscles up to ridiculous levels, a fact that quickly drives away Bill's other friends when he develops the same obsession. Backfires horribly when Bill hurts himself overdoing the exercises and his new training buddies don't notice and instead try to get him to do more weightlifting.
- Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: The Fitness Raccoons are a group of raccoon mutes who dress in flashy '80s aerobic attire and constantly work their bodies every day. Kipo’s group eventually learn they focus on exercising so much because they are regularly attacked by a megamute pigeon. Instead of fighting back or mourning their eaten friends, they work out excessively to not focus on the pressures of their life.
- The Loud House:
- A rare female example is the teenage girl Lynn Loud Jr., who spends most of her time playing sports, likes to drink protein shakes, and boasts about never skipping arm day or leg day.
- In "Health Kicked", Rita and Lynn Sr. temporarily become fitness nuts — they make their children exercise to the point that it wears out even Lynn Jr., make them eat grubs because they think they're healthy, and make them exercise early in the morning.
- In "White Hare", Lincoln dreams of two anthropomorphic rabbit girls who both spend most of their time playing sports and one of them drinks protein shakes.
- Recess: Vince, being the gang's jock, is regularly seen exercising. In "The Substitute", Mr. E substitutes for Mrs. Grotke during the latter's bunion surgery. During recess, he makes all the students do push-ups and jumping jacks. Most of the students are miserable and exhausted from doing so, but Vince is the only one who enjoys them, saying that if they exercised as often as he did, they would be in better shape and he wouldn't have to carry them all in kickball. Mr. E even praises Vince for doing such a good job exercising.
- The Regular Show episode "Rigby's Body" features one guy who worked out so often and so hard that his body left his soul behind.
- Rugrats: Betty DeVille, Phil and Lil's mother, almost always wears sportswear and often participates in some sort of sports-related activity.
- The Simpsons: Marge is occasionally portrayed as this, especially compared to Homer. One episode had her turn to weights and body building after a mugging incident, which helped her regain her confidence.
- Sponge Bob Squarepants: Larry the Lobster is primarily seen exercising at Goo Lagoon. Two episodes in season one have him compete in feats of strength, while "Bubble Buddy" sees him gnaw on celery on the mistaken belief he was called fat. In "Larry's Gym", he opens up a successful gym but steps down because the time he needs to spend on paperwork prevents him from working out. The spin-off Kamp Koral casts a young Larry as the counselor for a cabin full of tough, fitness-obsessed young fish like him.
- Star Trek: Lower Decks:
- Commander Ransom is obsessed with working out to the point where he forgets he's lifting weights while he's lifting weights. One episode has him defuse a diplomatic crisis on a planet whose hat is fitness, just by taking his shirt off.
- The crew revisit a planet last seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation, where the population had gotten addicted to a drug originally used to cure a plague and Picard left them to deal with going clean by not repairing the ships used for the drug trade. Twenty years later the population managed to get everyone through rehab, after some nasty withdrawals, but had compensated through an exaggerated focus on exercise and fitness (which is Truth in Television, as many addicts manage to recover through fitness as it keeps them busy and helps balance their body chemistry).
- Tiny Toon Adventures: When he's not working security, Arnold the Pit Bull is this. He even runs his own gym where he derives pleasure in mocking those with less sculpted bodies than his.
- Work It Out Wombats! has a positive example in the form of Ellie. She loves working out, her house is filled with gym-related equipment and in "Snout and About," she's shown lifting weights before going to bed.
