Weightlifting

                Every day after school I have track practice which normally last a little under two hours. We start out the practice by running a two lap warm up around the track. Then we do some stretches and then we start are workout for the day. Then to finish up with practice we normally run a cool down and then sometimes we do an ab workout and that’s the end of practice. We have never lifted any weights this year at practice.

                Many track teams lift weights but are team does not. Cedar Rapids Jefferson’s girls track team lifts weights and they normally always have really good sprinters on their team. A girl who used to go to my school moved schools this year and was on our track team. Now she is running track for Solon and on their track team they have normal running practice for two hours after school and after that they also lift weights for an hour. She has been able to improve her running and her times a lot this year and I wonder if a lot of that has to do with the fact that this year she has started to lift weights where as in years past she has not.

                Not only do some of the good high school track teams lift weights but also many of the college athletes lift weights for track. Since some of the better high school track teams tend to lift weights and because a lot of the college track teams lift weights it might be beneficial for our team to consider to start to do some weightlifting. Doing weightlifting probably won’t hurt our running performance very much unless we do too much weightlifting but it should still be more beneficial to our running then it would be hurtful.

                My coach has started to add some cross fit workouts to the distance runners practice to try to make them stronger but I think that my team would still benefit more by adding weightlifting and to make sure we are weightlifting more consistently and on a daily basis. It can be important to make sure you have strong legs and arms for running because your legs and arms are what push you forward in a race. The stronger legs and arms you have the faster that you may be able to go but if you do too much weightlifting you could become really muscular and muscles can weigh a lot so it could weigh you down too much so it’s important to find the right amount of weightlifting needed to be able to run your fastest. (437)