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How we stayed active

We are an active bunch here. Thanks goodness the team at Sport and Rec came up with some entertaining ways to keep us fit over lockdown.

Run the Country

During Alert Level 3 when New Zealanders were instructed to stay home in their bubbles, the University’s Sport staff challenged the University community to run the length of the country within a two-week period. Every kilometre run or walked by everyone who took part was added to the total distance.

A total of 295 students and staff completed the challenge and in only two and a half days the length of New Zealand had been covered, that’s 2,078km. By the end of the two weeks, a whopping 9,811km had been covered, that the equivalent of running from Auckland to Thailand!

Student Danielle Hao-Aickin ran an impressive 237.3km over the two weeks.

“I was never a runner, I would much rather go for a bike ride or to the gym than force myself to endure the pain of 10km jogging,” she says. “However, during this period I came to have a love-hate relationship that was beyond my body, where each kilometre was more a struggle for my mind. It diverted my attention away from the changing social norms around me and relieved me of stress when I felt the most anxious.”

It diverted my attention away from the changing social norms around me and relieved me of stress when I felt the most anxious.

Danielle Hao-Aickin

UoA Sport: Challenge Accepted

Since all sport was put on hold due to Covid-19, the University of Auckland’s sport team created a Facebook group to bring some fun, interactive sporting challenges in lockdown.

UoA Sport Challenge Accepted became part of the Interfaculty sport tournament bringing friendly faculty rivalry to the mix.

Once a challenge was posted students had 24 hours to accept the challenge and upload a video of themselves completing it with their faculty hashtag. After the 24 hours was up, students could vote for their favourite video or their faculty. First, second and third place were awarded points, as well as all faculties who entered the challenge and the most creative entry.

Almost 2,000 students were part of the Facebook group, with over 10,000 interactions on the page.

Recreation Centre during lockdown

While in lockdown the University’s Recreation Centre moved their classes and programmes online to help keep students, staff and the community active while they were at home.

This consisted of multiple live workouts daily via Zoom with qualified fitness instructors, a bunch of pre-recorded home workouts, form and technique videos, personal training sessions via Zoom, live Q&A sessions with fitness and nutrition professionals, virtual dance party events, as well as a virtual Women’s Fitness programme. These classes and programmes saw thousands of students and staff get involved to help keep themselves fit and healthy while at home.