Greg Welk is building systems to boost physical fitness statewide.

Working with world-class athletes at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado might be a dream job for most kinesiology professionals, but for Greg Welk, Distinguished Professor and the Barbara E. Forker Professor in Kinesiology, the experience fell flat. Helping a sprinter shave an eighth of a second off of their time helped that one athlete, but Welk’s aspirations went well beyond one or two sprinters.

“I was passionate about human performance, but it felt like my work was only impacting a few folks,” Welk says. “I wanted to take on the bigger challenge of how to impact human health in the broader population.”

In the 30-plus years since then, Welk has gone a long way toward meeting that challenge. He has been involved with organizations focused on increasing physical activity in everyone from kindergarteners to octogenarians. Regardless of the audience, his focus remains the same: to build systems to sustain programs over time. The idea of building systems is key to Welk’s philosophy; working with someone one-on-one helps that individual, but building a system that reaches a large group has the potential to help thousands of Iowans.

A small group of people are shown walking indoors in a gym setting from the waist down.
“Iowa State University is all about science with practice, and these programs are a great example of that.”

— Greg Welk

“If you’re trying to impact physical activity in a community, you have to build it into the fabric of that community,” he says.

And that’s just what he and his team have done with Walk With Ease, a group walking program that began as an accessible way for adults 65 and older to boost physical activity and prevent falls. Ever the strategist, Welk recognized the program’s potential benefits for working adults and created a parallel worksite program to impact more Iowans. The work is led by a team of researchers and powered by graduate and undergraduate students who apply their skills while learning.

“Iowa State University is all about science with practice, and these programs are a great example of that,” he says. “We’re working to build systems that can sustain programs that will benefit worksites and communities for years to come.”

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