Continuing the discussion from 
Spells8 Book Club XXX - Readers' Reviews!:
One thing I forgot to mention in relation to this is that in ancient times, the gymnasium was also used for intellectual pursuits – where philosophers would often congregate and debate. This bled over into more modern times, where we’ve sometimes called the high school itself a gimnazija or similar (gymnasium).
The word γυμνάσιον (gumnásion), from Greek γυμνός (gumnós) ‘naked’ or ‘nude’, was first used in Ancient Greece, in the sense of a place for both physical and intellectual education of young men. The latter meaning of a place of intellectual education persisted in many European languages (including Albanian, Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, Greek, German, Hungarian, Macedonian, Polish, Russian, Scandinavian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak and Slovenian), whereas in other languages, like English (gymnasium, gym) and Spanish (gimnasio), the former meaning of a place for physical education was retained. - Gymnasium (school) - Wikipedia
So to clarify, the word “gymnastics” in this context is a more holistic full body and mind approach to spirituality, I believe.