Alex Natera is the Senior Athletic Performance Specialist at the GWS Giants of the Australian Football League. He has spent more than 20 years in high performance sport, including time spent as a professional athlete, a sport science lecturer, a published scientific researcher, and his primary role as strength and conditioning coach. Before joining the Giants, Alex was the Senior Strength and Conditioning Coach at Aspire Academy in Qatar. Along with his current role as a strength coach, he is also a Rugby Union Head Coach for Doha Rugby Club, playing in the West Asian premiership. Natera served as a strength and conditioning coach for both the English Institute of Sport and the South Australian Sports Institute, and he has done extensive applied work in more than a dozen Olympic and Commonwealth games sports, including sprint cycling, canoe-kayak, and modern pentathlon.
Natera earned his Doctor of Philosophy in Sports Science from Bond University in Sydney, Australia. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in sport science and a master’s degree in applied sport science from St. Mary’s University College in London, U.K. Alex holds an ASCC from the UKSCA and the CSCS from the NSCA.
Alex digs into his background as an athlete and coach, and how he created his system of specialized strength training for speed and its progression. He discusses the ideas of supramaximal and isometric strength training, combining isometrics with plyometric training, specialized exercises for building speed, and his yearly progressions.
In this podcast, Coach Alex Natera and Joel discuss:
- His use of isometrics and progressions.
- Case studies linking isometrics and increased speed.
- Progressing supramaximal strength training with top-end speed athletes.
- Combining isometrics and plyometrics in his programming.
- Volume programming for supramaximal movements.
- His yearly programming calendar.
Podcast total run time is 1:17:21.
Keywords: isometrics, speed development, supramaximal training, plyometrics
