The Hawk men’s cross-country team benefits from the weight room.

by Adam Hensley
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Unknown to most fans, weightlifting is a main staple of the Iowa cross-country program.

The majority might envision these athletes spending their time working with endurance or speed running, not building muscle.

In the lower level of Carver-Hawkeye Arena sits the weight room, where the Hawkeyes gather twice a week for a lifting session.

“Weights are right up there with the running, the rest, and nutrition, right up there with anything we do,” head coach Layne Anderson said.

Junior Ben Anderson noted that lifting helps with not only the building of muscles but also in avoiding injuries.

“Weightlifting is pretty important; it’s definitely injury prevention,” he said. “I didn’t lift a lot in high school, but I got to college, and I can definitely see the effects.”

The Hawkeyes follow the schedule of lifting on Sundays and Wednesdays. Sundays are the intensive days, while Wednesdays are lighter.

Landon Evans, an assistant strength and conditioning coach who primarily focuses on track and field and cross-country, constructs the lifts with feedback and analysis from the coaching staff.

“Wednesday is lower intensive in nature,” he said. “The work that we do is very prophylactic, meaning that we are moving in ways that they don’t experience at all in running. We are exposing the muscles and joints to do things that are way outside of their realm.”

The goal is to increase muscles and joint strength and flexibility, especially outside of common motions that the athletes go through while running. Wednesdays have a higher volume of work, aiming to expose joints and muscles in ways that the runners do not see in running itself.

“It’s the furthest away from being specific to what they do,” Evans said. “But it is general in nature form a joint-muscle health standpoint.”

On the other hand, Sundays feature more power exercises. These include squats, RDLs, dead lifts, back extensions, and jumping activities.

“Sunday is a little more intensive,” Evans said. “The strength power [lifts] focus is on Sunday.”

High volume, less-intense work combined with powerful workouts forms a recipe for success. While each athlete is different — the focus and intensity for some may differ — the results are the same. Runners get a true balance of recovery and strength building.

Evans and Layne Anderson collaborate in workout planning. Not all runners are the same, so the two combine forces to construct the most beneficial workout format for each athlete.

“[The foundation of X-C weights] is purely on a needs analysis,” Evans said. “The driver of it all is the mechanical pieces, the ergonomic study of what they do. It’s a continual evaluation of the process; it’s very flexible.”