The ETH Sports Center

I have now been to 2 of what appears to be 8 branches of the ETH sports center. I have not found a pool yet but I'm pretty sure there are 2 pools ... somewhere. Nor have I found any sort of schedule that would tell me when I could swim laps in the pool without running into a swim team practice or pool filled with swim lessons. But since the pools seem to be at branches of the gym that are not convenient for me to get to, I'm not sure I'll ever go swimming here.

What I have found is very limited cardio equipment. Ellipticals like we use in the U.S. are not in style here - bikes are much more popular. Playing real sports and taking aerobics classes are preferred to using cardio machines. Which I can completely understand - it's much more fun to play a game of volleyball than to sit on a bike for a half hour.

One thing that I find interesting here is that aerobics classes are not step or kickboxing classes. They're dance classes. The aerobics options at the ETH sports centers are jazz, capoeira, ballett, street dance, salsa, modern dance, tango, latin, reggae, afro, and flamenco. There is a class called body pump too that's a weights class. I peeked in today at a few different classes and they were all packed! At least 50 people in each class - even the street dance class which looked fun. So, this is what you do here to stay in shape. At least I wouldn't have to worry about standing out in a small class because I don't know German as I can fade away into the back of the crowd far away from the instructor.

Spinning and rowing also seem to be really popular here. There is a rowing room just like a spinning room except filled with rowing machines. How fun is that. There are also tons of yoga and pilates classes which I intend to make good use of once I learn some German.

And there was a dojo at each branch I went to. I looked into one of them and it was filled with people doing some sort of martial arts. These gyms have everything! Except a pool! And I haven't found racquetball or squash yet even though I was sure I'd find them here.

So that's my sports center recap.