Today’s episode features Alex Natera, senior athletic performance specialist at the GWS Giants of the AFL. Alex has over twenty years of experience in high performance sport including time spent as a professional sportsman, a technical coach, a sport science lecturer, a published scientific researcher and his primary role as strength & conditioning coach. Prior to the Giants, Alex was the senior strength and conditioning coach at Aspire Academy.
Alex’s original article on isometric training that was specific to training sprinters “broke the internet” several years ago. In it, Alex laid out an approach to training sprinters (and speed in general) in the weightroom in a manner that was very novel to anything coaches had seen before, using isometric exercises to hone specific elements of the run cycle. This was followed up by podcast #86 where Alex took us in the nuts and bolts of the training system for sprinters.
Since our last podcast, Alex, has spent a lot of time working with, not sprinters, but team sport athletes. As much as the specificity of Alex’s isometrics to running still ring true in the scenario of training team sport athletes, working with this population versus sprinters is really a different “beast” than sprinters, who are more or less fresh all of the time and are athletic freaks. On today’s show, Alex gets into the fine points of how he is incorporating his system into a team sport training regime. Other topics we will cover will be Alex’s take on hamstring training for team sport athletes vs. sprinters, as well as a fun story regarding how the run-specific isometric protocol originated in the first place.
Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.
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View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.Timestamps and Main Points
6:00 The history of Run-Specific isometrics, and the necessity that sparked the protocol that has now become very popular and effective in training sprint velocity
26:00 Strength norms for the knee, hip and ankle in run specific ISO’s
30:05 Some of the big differences in applying run-specific isometrics in team sport athletes, specifically Australian rules football, versus pure sprinters
42:00 How Run-Specific isometrics have a strong impact on running efficiency in team sport athletes who have long distances to navigate with each game
50:40 What Alex does when force plates are not available for Run-specific isometric training
52:30 Some of Alex’s methods in addressing hamstring injuries in team sport athletes
Quotes
“I was involved in isometric training, back to when I was a little kid in the martial arts”
“I attest my strength in the scrum as a player completely to isometrics”
“Our guys were getting a training effect from (weekly) mid-thigh pull assessments”
“(A modern pentathlete) got 25% stronger in isometric mid-thigh pull, and then things like contact time at race pace, running economy, these things had a really positive shift”
“I agree, isometrics are the safest mode of lifting work”
“There is this minority group that can ruin themselves doing too much maximal isometric work”
“(For the modern pentathlete) We did 3 sets of 3×4 second pushes (in the single leg isometric mid-thigh pull), mostly around the 90% effort mark”
“It’s about 5x bodyweight for knee ISO push, for ankle ISO push, it’s about 3.5x bodyweight, for your hip ISO push, now it’s system mass, and it’s 3.5 times the system mass”
“When it comes to team sports (versus sprinting), it’s a whole new level with fatigue; they are always fatigued”
“The challenge is how do you incorporate isometrics into that program in a team sport athletes where the bucket it already full? Something has to come out of the bucket to put it back in”
“The easiest thing to take out of the program is the volume of traditional lifting”
“We certainly give small doses of isometric work, in some of our athletes, before they even go out on the training field”
“If you are going to do a big isometric knee push, one of the best ways to get warmed up for that is to do some squatting”
“You can use isometrics as a complex exercise. You can do an isometric calf, and go straight into drop jumps for example”
“A good sprinter, they’ve never failed at looking like they could hold a Nordic hamstring forever. We need more research on sprinters, because they don’t fit it”
“I prefer to work in variety (in hamstring training for sprinters) around their proximal hamstring work throughout the season”
“What (team sport athletes) are missing is that sprint exposure, and the careful manipulation of sprint exposure and isolated hamstring work like in a Nordic hamstring curl, for example”
“Team sport athletes ankles aren’t great, compared to a sprinter… focus on making them more reactive, and how that applies to the rest of the running cycle and gait is absolutely essential”
Show Notes
Run Specific Isometrics Original Article:
Modern Speed Training: Q&A with Alex Natera on Isometrics for Running Performance
About Alex Natera
Alex Natera has over twenty years of experience in high performance sport including time spent as a professional sportsman, a technical coach, a sport science lecturer, a published scientific researcher and his primary role as strength & conditioning coach. Alex is currently the Senior Athletic Performance Specialist at the GWS Giants in the AFL. Alex was prior the Senior S&C Coach of Aspire Academy Athletics where he specialized in the sprints events. Alex had responsibility for the physical preparation of track & field athletes for the past eight years but he has also been fortunate enough to ply his trade, and learn his craft, from influences working across the globe in a variety of sports including Premier League Soccer and Championship level Rugby Union. Along with his current role he continues to provide technical leadership in Rugby Union as Head Coach for Doha Rugby Club playing in the West Asian premiership.
As a previous S&C coach for both the English Institute of Sport and the South Australian Sports Institute, Alex has done extensive applied work in over a dozen Olympic and Commonwealth games sports, including Sprint Cycling, Canoe-Kayak and Modern Pentathlon. Notably, Alex has played his part in preparing multiple Junior and senior sportsmen for World Championship performances, Olympic Medal successes and World Records throughout his career. Alex holds a Bachelor’s degree in Sport Science, a Master’s degree in Applied Sport Science, the ASCC from the UKSCA and the CSCS from the NSCA and he is currently completing his PhD where he is investigating a novel aspect of power development- high volume power training and repeat power ability.
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