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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 a conditioning coach.   Prior to the Giants, Alex was the Senior SaC 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 QaA 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.   View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. 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 th...