Calisthenics in Zürich

What is Calisthenics?

Calisthenics is strength training with your own bodyweight: pushing, pulling, squatting, hinging and holding, on the floor and on bars. The name comes from the Greek words for beauty and strength. Unlike machine training, every exercise asks the whole body to work together, which builds coordination and control alongside strength.

The method lives from progressions. A push-up has a dozen versions between the wall and the one-arm variant; a pull-up starts as a row and a hold long before the first full repetition. Progress is visible and measurable.

What happens in a Calisthenics class at Anida Lab

Classes in the Aura Room last fifty minutes and take up to fourteen people. They open with joint preparation and a warm-up that already asks for control, then a main block with one pushing pattern, one pulling pattern, legs and a hold. Each exercise comes in three progressions and you choose the one you can do cleanly; the teacher watches form over numbers. The class ends with a short skill block, handstand preparation or core work, and a breath to finish.

What changes with regular practice

Strength you can use outside the gym: pushing, pulling, carrying, climbing. Better body control and coordination, shoulders, wrists and hips that tolerate load, and a clear sense of progress from week to week as the progressions move: knees off the floor, feet higher, the first negative pull-up, the first full one.

Who Calisthenics is for

For anyone who wants to get strong without machines or weights, for complete beginners because the first progressions start on the floor and on the low bars, for people with Pilates or yoga experience who want more strength, and for athletes who need control and coordination, not only load. Tell your teacher about an injury before the class; the progressions adapt.

Calisthenics or Pilates?

Both build strength from the center outwards. Pilates works with precision and low load and refines control; Calisthenics works with the full bodyweight and builds strength you can see. The two complement each other well: a Pilates class trains the control that makes a clean push-up possible, and Calisthenics gives the Pilates body strength under load. Both are covered by the same Aura Room pass.

How to start

Book in the schedule on this page with your email address; there is no app to install. The first visit is simplest with the Guest Pass for CHF 40: one class, valid for seven days. After that, a pack of ten or twenty classes or a Movement membership from CHF 370 a month covers every class in both rooms. You can cancel in your account up to 24 hours before the class and the credit returns to your pass. Grip socks and a small towel are the only equipment; bring both.

Where to find us in Zürich

Anida Lab is at Gotthardstrasse 40, 8002 Zürich, in the Enge quarter of Kreis 2. Bahnhof Enge is a few minutes on foot, with S-Bahn and tram connections to the main station, Paradeplatz and the lake. The lab is open Monday to Friday from 06:30 to 21:30 and at weekends from 09:00 to 15:00, which makes a class before work, at lunchtime or on the way home realistic for people who live or work in Enge, Wollishofen, Wiedikon, the city center and along the lake.

Under one roof you find the Aura Room, the Reformer Room, the Red Light Therapy cabin, the analyses of Therapy Base and the Anida Café. A class, ten minutes of red light and a coffee fit into one visit.