Exercising at home

Stay at home, but stay active! Discover our selection of tools and resources enabling you to exercise at home so that you can stay fit and keep your spirits up. 

Doing daily exercise is not only good for your body but also for your mind! The WHO recommends doing 30 minutes of physical activity every day for adults and one hour for children, whose lifestyle risks becoming more sedentary with the closure of their schools and sports clubs.

People working from home must also make sure they do not remain in the same position for prolonged periods and should take regular breaks to move around. 

For anyone accustomed to doing an outdoor sporting activity such as hiking, jogging or cycling, it is important to comply with the health authorities’ social distancing recommendations and to do these activities either alone or with one other person. 

A daily sports session live!  

The City, the Canton of Geneva and Léman Bleu have joined forces to offer the public a live sports session at 9 a.m. every morning, led by a coach from the region. What better way to kick-start your day? And for anyone interested, the videos are available throughout the day, so that you can do the exercises over and over, whenever you want! 

Using everyday objects for different purposes

At home, furniture and everyday objects can be transformed into sports equipment: using two chairs, stools or a bench, it is possible to do series of dips (lifting yourself, bending your elbows and raising yours legs) in order to strengthen your upper body muscles. With a pair of socks and a well-polished parquet floor, you can also do some “gliding”, involving parallel sliding movements. With a carton of milk in each hand, you have a ready-made set of weights to strengthen your arms. Numerous exercises that you can do at home without any equipment are available online at the click of a mouse, such as this Huffingtonpost video:

Video applications and remote coaching

You can also call on free apps if you want to do sport, such as Fitness challenge, Fizzup (no equipment needed), Seven (quick exercises lasting seven minutes), Sworkit (extensive), Daily Yoga (yoga exercises in HD with different levels of difficulty and durations) and Teemo (exercises in the form of adventure games, with registration via Facebook). Numerous videos will also help you to do sport from a distance, such as those provided by coach Lucile Woodward or the Website Mon yoga virtuel.

Finally, certain coaches now provide remote and video courses offering better follow-up at a relatively low cost.

femme d'âge mûr qui s'étire l'épaule en tirant sur son coude

Genève le 16 janvier 2017. Espace de quartier Eaux-Vives Cité, Champel. Gym seniors. ©Delphine Schacher/Ville de genève

Lessons for senior citizens

Several institutions also organise sessions for senior citizens who want to keep fit at home: 

  • Unisanté organises live keep-fit sessions at home for senior citizens (and others!) on its YouTube channel.
  • The Mouvement des Aînés (MDA Activités 50+) Pilates coach organises 2 daily sessions live on YouTube at 9.30 a.m. and 5.30 p.m.   

 

    Article modifié le 30.11.2020 à 11:51