What does it take to be an athlete on a Division I team? What separates the varsity athlete from the high school star who stills plays the occasional pickup game on the weekends? There is always the given skill and talent required to propel an athlete forward in his or her sport. But a key aspect of an athlete’s career takes place behind closed doors — the hours of dedication no one sees when an athlete trains and prepares physically: the workout.
Track and FieldJulia Lucas
Last year, senior Julia Lucas was the ACC champion for distance running. This year, Lucas has received all-ACC honors and qualified for Nationals.
To win these honors, Lucas’ workout routine includes a lot of one thing — running. Lucas said she trains by running 13 miles a day, with a 16-mile run on Saturdays. Lucas said she splits her days by running nine miles in the morning with the team and an extra four miles in the afternoon by herself.
According to Lucas, she runs for about an hour and a half a day. But running is only part of practice.
“There’s half an hour of stretching before practice, then there’s the actual running time,” Lucas said. “Then we’ll spend about 15 minutes on drills, half an hour on weights and then maintenance. Including everything it comes to about three hours.”
In addition to running, training for Lucas includes a lot of core work, she said.
“Because we want to be light and strong, we don’t want to bulk up,” Lucas said. “We’ll do high reps with low weight, push-ups and pull-ups, some more core stability muscles — not just abs. But we’ll do abs, back, obliques and hips to stay strong and sturdy.”
While Lucas initiates much of her workout, she said her coaches provide guidance and accountability.
“Coaches are huge part of the team,” Lucas said. “At the beginning of the season everyone goes in individually and plans out the season, what mileage is going to be — focus on races.”
“As a freshman it’s more hands-on, and they guide you. As a senior, you rely on them a lot, but you’ve learned how training works.”
For instance, Lucas said, the team may run on the track and the coaches would have stopwatches, timing the runners’ progress.
Lucas said the team runs on the track, on the intramural fields, at Lake Johnson or at trails on the grounds of Dorothea Dix Hospital.
“Twice a week we go to Umstead State Park,” Lucas said. “It’s a beautiful system of trails — miles and miles of trails. I can run my 16 miles without repeating anything.”
BaseballCaleb Mangum
Providing strong at-bats as well as a defensive force behind the plate, senior catcher Caleb Mangum has overcome a knee injury to make significant contributions to the team’s 24 wins this season.
“My knees are in the most pain when I don’t catch,” Mangum said. “I took last summer off, and they felt more tired. The more I catch, the better I feel.”
During the regular season, Mangum said he doesn’t do legs in the weight room as much, doing more “cardio and stretching to focus on recovery.” Monday is the team’s only day off after a weekend series, but Mangum said he won’t stay sedentary.
“If I’m tired I’ll run two and a half miles and do some medicine ball workouts, not to break muscles but make them more flexible,” Mangum said.
The team members will lift together twice a week, Mangum said, either after practice or on Wednesdays after a game. Mangum said workout intensity will be lighter after a game than after practice.
During the off season, Mangum said there’s more of a focus on getting in physical shape because “there’s no game schedule getting in the way, and you don’t have to worry about recovery time.” Twice a week, the team will work on either agility and quickness or long-distance cardio, he said.
“Out of season we want to build whole-body strength,” Mangum said. “Catching is about balance and core work, so I’ll work big, total-body muscles.”
Now that he’s a senior, Mangum said he has more say in what he does and how much.
“When you’re a freshman you don’t know what your body needs,” Mangum said. “You trust what your coaches tell you.”
“It’s about knowing your body and the things that help you recover quicker. After I’ve been catching three games all weekend, I have different needs. They trust me to know my body and what I need.”
GymnasticsLeigha Hancock
Last season, junior Leigha Hancock was the fifth N.C. State gymnast ever to compete in the NCAA Championships. The junior from Suffield, Conn., this year has been the EAGL Specialist of the Week four times. Hancock excels despite having a bad back, which forces her to run in a hydro pool in the training room.
The team does “tiring and strenuous” workouts during the preseason, according to Hancock. While the season is underway, Hancock said she will go through one or two routines a day. She works out in the weight room four times a week for two and a half to three hours each set and does five hours of cardiovascular work a week.
In the weight room, Hancock said the team judges progress not by the pounds lifted but by how many 30-second sets are completed. On the bench press, for instance, Hancock said she does 10 repetitions of 30-second sets, pressing between 75 and 80 pounds.
“After the season we try to bulk up,” Hancock said. “But during the season we try to stay cut.”
Men’s TennisNick Cavaday
Junior Nick Cavaday is ranked No. 61 in the nation in singles and No. 21 with doubles partner William Noblitt. The London, England, native said he works hard to keep his body up to the challenge.
“As a team we practice each day for about two to three hours,” Cavaday said. “Then we have physical training on top of that for about three to four hours, and then there’s anything we do outside of practice.”
The team does lots of conditioning, Cavaday said, including distance running for three miles at a time. For speed and endurance, Cavaday said the team will do hill sprints and sets of sprints with only a minute in between.
To work on “core stability,” Cavaday said he’ll balance on an exercise ball, “imitating forehand and backhand strokes.”
Women’s TennisJulia Roach
This season, Julia Roach has accumulated 22 wins. After earning team MVP as a freshman, the junior has grown stronger each year.
Though during the season workouts are shorter, Roach said, she usually doesn’t do a lot of conditioning on her own since the team does so much together. According to Roach, the team works out three days a week, doing conditioning for about 30 minutes each day.
“We do a lot of agility work — our footwork and getting more explosive,” Roach said.
Agility work means lots of sprints and not much distance running during the season, Roach said. The team runs on the tennis court or the track for longer distances during the fall.
In the weight room, Roach said the team will spend 45 minutes to an hour at a time working on strength and conditioning.
Kristin Davies and Austin HamptonSwimming and Diving
Divers Kristin Davies and Austin Hampton recently finished strong in the NCAA Diving Zone Championship in Athens, Ga., as Hampton finished 19th and Davies was the highest placed female finishing 12th.
Davies, who is a freshman and a former gymnast, said she hasn’t really been pushed physically since her gymnastic days. She said she does interval cardiovascular — such as sprints — on her own in addition to what the team does in practice.
During a typical practice, Davies said the team would “go to the gymnastics room for an hour and do somersaults and flips.”
“That may not sound hard,” she said. “But after 40 of them it gets hard. Then we’d dive for an hour and a half to two hours.”
Hampton, who is a sophomore, described going through “belts” after practice.
“It’s a pulley system that has what is similar to a seat belt with padding and clips on each side with ropes, suspended over a trampoline,” Hampton said. “The coach will hold you up and go through your dive.”
Hampton said as a diver, he works to not only have perfect form, but to enter the water so that there is no splash or ripple. Per practice, Hampton said he will do 75 to 100 dives, lasting for two to two and a half hours.
Both Hampton and Davies said they workout with their teams in the weight room three times a week. Both divers said they will focus on legs one day, arms the next day and a combination on the third day.
Because diving requires different concentrations, Hampton and Davies said their workouts do not focus so much on cardiovascular, but both divers said they run and do abdominal exercises on their own.