Vitaparcours

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Exercise sign in a Vitaparcours near Walenstadt.
Exercise sign in a Vitaparcours
Old sign with the logo of Vita insurance in Östringen

A Vitaparcours (also Vita Parcours or Zurich vitaparcours ) is a sports course that is usually laid out in a forest and is available to the public. It consists of various parcours posts where exercises for strength, endurance, flexibility and coordination are provided.

The Vitaparcours is the Swiss equivalent of the German fitness trail , although there are also some Vitaparcours in Germany (for example in Lörrach and Weinstadt ).

The first Vitaparcours was built on May 18, 1968 with the support of the then Vita life insurance company on Zürichberg, Zürich Fluntern, not far from the zoo.

The starting spark was formed by a team of men (gymnastics club) from Wollishofen , who used fallen trees and other natural objects to practice on them. But since forest workers often removed them, it was suggested to the community to set up a permanent course with gymnastics exercises. The community took up this suggestion and secured the support of what was then Vita-Versicherung, which later became part of Zurich Versicherung.

While in the beginning the Vita-Parcours were only intended for athletes, in 1972 the concept was extended to families and less athletic people. In 1973 the hundredth Vitaparcours was opened, in 1990 the five hundredth. This means that around a fifth of the world's fitness trails are in Switzerland.

There are now over 500 Vitaparcours in Switzerland. Today, Zurich Insurance is the main sponsor of the Vita Parcours Foundation , which promotes this with the slogan “Welcome to the largest fitness club in Switzerland!” . The courses are looked after and maintained by local bodies such as municipalities, sports clubs or tourism associations; Civil defense often takes on major repairs . The annual maintenance costs of a Vitaparcours facility are around 1000 to 2000 Swiss francs, while the foundation pays for the creation of the course.

The Helsana trails operated by the Helsana health insurance company are aimed at joggers , Nordic walkers and walkers.

Exercises

Each system was set up differently due to the spatial and topographical conditions. The shortest Vitaparcours routes are only a few hundred meters long. The more strenuous courses are over 3 kilometers long, or can include an ascent of more than 120 meters (e.g. the course in Naters VS ). The average course is 2.35 km long and has an incline of 59 meters. At present (2015) there are 498 Vitaparcours routes in Switzerland, 21 of which are so-called short courses.

A brief summary of the 15 items follows. The signs indicate what type of exercise (strength, endurance or dexterity) it is and how long the exercise should be performed.

  1. Stretching , including the calf and ankle muscles.
  2. Agility exercises
  3. Skill: Hop on a tree trunk, keep balance. Likewise, frog hopping over the tree trunks.
  4. Mobility: Hold on to a horizontal bar and let yourself dangle. Strength: Pull-ups and hold on to the bar with arms bent.
  5. Flexibility exercises for the back
  6. Mobility: Leg circles, hanging from rings . Strength: slowly raise your knees while hanging from rings
  7. Power: Swinging on a bar in the support. Pull-ups on bars with a straight body. Walking in support.
  8. Endurance: Quick stepping on a tree trunk. Strength: ascending, stretching the body and descending on a higher piece of tree trunk.
  9. Strength: exercises for the abdominal and back muscles
  10. Endurance: Hop forward and sideways over tree trunks
  11. Flexibility and stamina on a bar
  12. Strength: push-ups , push-ups backwards on a bar
  13. Endurance and skill: slalom run around poles, pole run while each pole is completely circled once before moving on to the next
  14. Dexterity: Balancing forwards and backwards on a beam. Keep your balance on one leg with your legs and arms straight
  15. Re-stretching various muscle groups

Web links

Commons : Vitaparcours  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Vita-Parcours Lörrach with the new Swiss signs, but with the logo of the city of Lörrach
  2. ↑ Vita-Parcours Weinstadt with the old Swiss signs, with the logo of the Vita insurance
  3. ↑ [1] On: NZZ of May 16, 2018
  4. ↑ Out fit Auf: Coop newspaper from June 13, 2017
  5. ↑ a b c [2] The largest fitness club in Switzerland is located in the forest On: Swissinfo.ch (accessed on March 21, 2015)
  6. ↑ [3] Data and facts On: zurichvitaparcours.ch