Women go through grueling Carver-Hawkeye workout with sprints up stairs, buddy-carries and hand-fighting

IOWA CITY, Iowa - The 30-plus athletes attending the Women’s National Team training camp that met in the hotel lobby at 6:45 a.m. on Wednesday morning knew they would do some running during their morning workout. The schedule did not specify anything beyond that.


When the team got to the Dan Gable Wrestling Complex, National Women’s Coach Terry Steiner told them to put on running shoes, then brought them into the darkened Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Today’s workout was something which Steiner had to endure when he competed under Dan Gable in the early 1990’s, something that has become part of the tradition of the Hawkeye program.


Steiner asked the women to pair off with someone of equal running speed, a person they could race against. He brought them all the way down to the floor of the arena. The assignment was to race your partner all the way up the arena stairs, and then sprint a lap around the entire concourse of Carver-Hawkeye Arena, which is like a big track. These are known as sprint-laps.


“We worked out in that gym a lot. I was talking to one of the wrestlers the other day. He said ‘I hate that, Carver-Hawkeye and the sprint laps.’ I looked at him and said, ‘Yes, but that is what made us.’ Sprint-laps were a very important part of our training, conditioning-wise, but also toughness-wise. I am utilizing the training facility we are in, just trying to pass on what I learned in my career on to them. When I was here, Coach Gable and his staff utilized those stairs in Carver-Hawkeye and the concourse in Carver-Hawkeye many times. It is part of what made me who I was as an athlete at the University of Iowa,” said Steiner.


Doing the sprint-lap once was tough. But Steiner asked them to do it six times in a row.


“It was really tough, getting up early in the morning. We are halfway through camp now and people are feeling worn down. Probably during the first stadium stairs, my legs were already shaking. I was like ‘this is going to be a push,’” said National Team member Sarah Hildebrandt.


“It was definitely one of those mentally tough workouts. The first part is hard, and then you have to sprint right after running the stairs. It was definitely a great conditioning workout,” said two-time World bronze medalist Alyssa Lampe.


After that, Steiner asked them to pair off with someone of same weight. He brought them back to the floor of the arena, and had them do buddy-carries. You take your partner, her on your back, and carry her all the way up to the top of the stairs. Once on the concourse, the wrestlers go immediately go into an extended hard hand-fight.


You may have seen a famous wrestling poster of the Brands twins doing the buddy-carries in this arena when they were competing.


“They carry someone, their legs are completely shot, you get to the top and then all of a sudden they have to stand their ground. They have to engage in a fight. When you get to the top, you have to be able to perform when you are tired and your partner is fresh. You have to be able to perform when you are totally exhausted. And you can. If your mind lets you, your body will do the job. It is getting their mind to let you perform. It is showing them you can perform at a high level when you are totally exhausted,” said Steiner.


Each wrestler had to do two buddy carries. That meant four more times up the stairs, two for each partner with a buddy on their back, and four different hand-fighting sessions.


“That was definitely the hardest part of the workout and it was after all of our sprints. You had to carry them up the whole stadium then go directly into a hand-fight. That was rough. The hand-fight was actually harder than the buddy-carry because I was so worn down. Getting down in my stance was really difficult. That was the push of it, like when you are tired in a match, staying in position and staying in the hand-fight, being able to push through that,” said Hildebrandt.


When the work in the arena was done, Steiner brought them back into the room and got them immediately into their wrestling shoes. They did over an hour of technical work in a variety of positions. The morning finished with a yoga session with a respected local yoga master. It was the longest and the hardest of the workouts in the camp so far.


“The toughness was part of it. But we still have technique to work on, we still have tactical areas to work on. We can’t let that go either. We had time on the mat again today, to make them understand that we can work on things, we can still perform and still wrestle when we don’t quite feel like it. The definition of discipline is doing what you don’t want to do when you don’t want to do it. You do it anyway, because it is the right thing to do. If you just waited until you felt good to do the right thing, we wouldn’t be where we are at. I am sure they didn’t want to come down here today and get on the mat. But we still have things to work on here,” said Steiner.


The athletes had to push through during the mat portion of the practice, in spite of how tired the arena workout made them.


“We did this workout right before wrestling, which is that much tougher. It is hard, but it is good for our conditioning, and is good for when you are tired and trying to hit moves,” said Lampe.


“It is hard to get into that mental state of mind, now I need to wrestle. I need to stay positive. I can’t sit there on the mat and say ‘my legs hurt and I can’t learn this move.’ That was a big challenge for a lot of us, when Coach said to throw your shoes on and practice is still going, to keep that positive mindset that carries you through the workout,” said Hildebrandt.


When it was over, the athletes looked very tired, but there was a feeling of accomplishment and pride.


“A week of these tough workouts is going to be good for us, come March and April. We want to get the weights qualified and that is the main priority right now,” said Lampe.


“There is something about this environment. I will be competing here at the Trials in a few months, and I think that is what pushed a lot of us through the workout today. I enjoy this so much. I love this room, and this atmosphere. It gets me so pumped,” said Hildebrandt.


Steiner was hoping to create positive change in how the women handle themselves during difficult competition.


“The biggest thing we are stressing in this camp is the toughness and the grit of wrestling. Technique and tactics are part of it, but even as important is that toughness and grit. There is only one way to get that. You put yourself in that situation time and time again. If you do that often enough, all of a sudden it feels normal and you don’t think anything of it. It is really stretching your boundaries,” he said.


The idea is to put the team in these kind of situations on a regular basis, time and time again.


“This morning’s workout is nothing more than that. It’s pushing them and making them understand you don’t have to feel good. Nobody cares how you feel. The important thing is you have a job to do and a task to finish. It doesn’t matter if you feel good or bad, finish the job. Do what you are supposed to do. It’s doing that over and over, and making them perform again at a high level. There is no secret to it. There is a price for success. If you are not willing to pay that price, what you get from that is failure. You have to pay for success in one way or another. This morning, they put a little money in the bank,” he said.