Today’s episode features Alex Natera, Senior Athletic Performance Specialist at the GWS Giants. 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 S&C Coach of Aspire Academy Athletics specializing in the sprint events. Alex has extensive work with the physical preparation of track and field athletes. He also has worked as a Rugby head coach, and has done physical preparation for over a dozen Olympic and Commonwealth games sports. Alex is currently completing his Ph.D. from Bond University where he is investigating a novel aspect of power development, high volume power training, and repeat power ability.
I first heard of Alex on the Historic Performance Podcast, and was truly intrigued by Alex’s way of thinking, which centered on using a series of maximal, specific isometric holds for speed development, and whereby his athletes were having great progressions in their overall training. I had never seen or heard of isometrics being used in such a manner for the training of track and field sprinters, and digging deeper, connected with Alex and in our correspondence, he put together one of the greatest Q&A pieces that Just Fly Sports has put out. Many months after its debut, it still continues to get likes and shares on social media.
Not only are Alex’s isometric methods different, but they get results. His methods also make sense. If you have followed the training ideals of Christian Thibaudeau, Anatoliy Bondarchuk, Michael Yessis, Cal Dietz, Bret Contreras, and DB Hammer and put them together in a simple way that helped to get sprinters maximally fast, then you would have the system of Alex Natera.
Today’s podcast was designed as a follow up to his article, and we dig into Alex’s background as an athlete, coach, and how he created his system of specialized strength training for speed and its progression. We will get into questions and ideas of supramaximal and isometric strength training, combining isometrics with plyometric training, specialized exercises for building speed, yearly progressions, and more.
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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Key Points:
- Alex’s background as an athlete
- Alex’s background in experimenting with isometric training and progressing it over the years
- Specific case studies in isometric training and improved sprint speed
- Combining isometrics with plyometrics
- Utilizing and progressing supramaximal strength training for speed-seeking athletes
- Knee vs. Hip and Ankle dominant supramaximal work
- Alex’s top 3 exercises for improving athletic speed
- Yearly progressions for more advanced sprint athletes
“Why, when I’m learning about muscle actions, do we only develop the concentric action?”
“If we are testing in the (mid-thigh isometric pull) environment, why aren’t we training in that environment as well?”
“There is not a lot of research there in regards to isometric training for running”
“A great muscle action with poor tendon ability and coordination is only going to take you so far, I always combine my plyometrics and isometric together”
“Integration of isometrics training in off-season and preseason periods for speed enhancement”
“After the season, I’ll get into my eccentric work straightaway. Supramaximal eccentrics, depending on the athlete, will stay in up to 12 weeks”
“If you’ve got a 1RM and you put 110% and they cannot control that whatsoever, they are not ready for eccentric work, so just keep working them concentrically”
“(regarding supramaximal training) We have got to remember that the tendons take a lot longer to adapt… the longer we can give a tendon to adapt the better”
“I do supramaximal knee work by itself 1x a week, and the ankle and hip work I do together in a session, 1x a week, and I get good results so I have no temptation to do any more than that. I take 4 weeks to progress athletes through time under tension variations until we get to a good 8 week block of supramaximal loading”
“If you carry on with heavy supramaximal eccentric work after Christmas, there is disruptions to coordination”
“You don’t need a lot of volume with supramaximal work, you can get away with three triples on each leg”
“The stronger guys from a peak force side of things, on the knee dominant exercise for sure, they are the best accelerators for really sure distances”
“I do isometrics from a seated calf raise to simulate angles in acceleration”
“I don’t feel the urge with a strong guy to lift heavy, or do an Olympic lift derivative”
“Let them be fresh, and let them do what they do best”
Show Notes
A setup similar to what Alex was talking about for his hip dominant supramaximal work (here is an isometric option)
Ankle “Switches” demonstrating Alex’s switches and catches.
Hip isometric push
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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