Staying Fit in Zürich on a 50-Hour Week (Without the Gym You’ll Stop Going To)

At one point in my banking years I had a gym membership I used so rarely that each visit worked out at roughly the price of a decent dinner. I kept paying it, of course — cancelling would have meant admitting something. If you’ve done the same maths and kept quiet about it, this article is for you.

Here’s the strange thing about Zürich: this city is practically designed for fitness. The lake, the Uetliberg, the woods above the Goldküste, lidos, paths, pools — and yet it’s full of professionals who are paying for gyms they don’t visit, because the same city hands you 50-hour weeks, calls across three time zones, and a calendar that eats lunch breaks for sport.

After fifteen years in that world — Deutsche Bank, Nomura, and these days as COO of a Swiss fintech — I can tell you the answer isn’t a better gym. It’s a different model entirely.

Stop treating fitness as a place you go

Any plan that needs an extra hour and a change of location will lose to your calendar. Not sometimes — every week, eventually. The people who stay fit here aren’t more motivated; they’ve just stopped commuting to their fitness. Three shifts make the difference:

Twenty minutes, three times a week. A short, structured strength session you actually do beats the sixty-minute one you keep rescheduling. It fits before the shower or after the kids are down, and it needs floor space, not membership. (I’ve written up the exact three workouts I use with clients — they’re free on this site.)

Let the city be the cardio. If you’re anywhere along the lake — Küsnacht, Erlenbach, Zollikon, over in Thalwil — you have one of the best walking and running routes in Europe outside your door. One phone call a day taken walking along the water quietly out-trains most gym plans. In summer, the lake itself is a workout pretending to be a reward.

Put it in the work calendar. Not your private one — the one people book meetings into. My clients who succeed all do exactly this: sessions blocked like client meetings, defended like client meetings. Zürich professionals ruthlessly protect what’s scheduled and quietly abandon what isn’t. Use that about yourself.

The underrated part: other people

Training alone requires discipline. Training with three other people requires only that you turned up last week and liked it. That’s half the reason I run small in-person mornings on the Goldküste, and why there’s a runner club starting from Küsnacht early mornings soon.

If you want this turned into an actual plan

Everything above is direction — the plan is personal. That’s what a Strategy Session is for: one call, a proper look at your week, and a written 4-week plan built around your real schedule, not an idealised one. One hour, CHF 150, and you stop paying for that gym. Book yours here.

Aparna Emile is a Küsnacht-based performance and fitness coach for busy professionals — Les Mills and Precision Nutrition certified, 15 years in financial services. She coaches in person around Zürich and online worldwide.