Speed training in football, advice for young coaches, and overcoming Covid challenges with Alek Gross (Head of Sports Science at Southampton FC)

In this episode of the Pacey Performance Podcast I am speaking to Head of Sports Science & 1st Team fitness Coach at Southampton FC, Alek Gross. It was an absolutely pleasure to get Alek on again and speak to a fellow Yorkshireman. Alek featured in episode 96 so after 5 years it was well worth an update. It is so refreshing to have someone of Alek's position in Premier League football speak so openly about what he does and doesn't do in his environment. If you are interested in the realities of working in professional football at the first team level, give this a listen. 

If you enjoyed this episode with Alek Gross you may enjoy this Championship Football Roundtable episode.

In this episode, we discuss -

• Who is Alek Gross (background, education and current role)
• Dealing with Covid
  • Forcing players to be independent
  • Programming and planning for an uncertain return
  • Reflections
• Speed in football
  • Individualising repeat sprint ability
  • Influencing pitch based training
    • "We don't have time, just get them to sprint" is a common argument against the overemphasis on drilling
  • Transfer
• Advice for young practitioners
  • Universities vs applied world
  • Getting and keeping a job in football

Alek can be found on Twitter @aleksgross

This episode of the Pacey Performance Podcast is sponsored by Output Sports – a Swiss Army Knife for optimising off field performance. Output Sports have developed a one-stop portable tool for comprehensive, valid and reliable athlete assessment. You can learn more about Output on outputsports.com or follow them on social media on @OutputSports where you can schedule a demo.

This episode of the Pacey Performance Podcast is sponsored by Hawkin Dynamics, the team behind the world's only wireless force plate system. Hawkin Dynamics can be found at hawkindynamics.com and you can follow them on Twitter @hawkindynamics

This episode is also sponsored by IMeasureU. IMeasureU are a world leading inertial platform to precisely quantify body movement and workload metrics in the field. IMeasureU can be found at imeasureu.com and you can follow them on Twitter @imeasureu.

This episode is also sponsored by Omegawave, the only non-invasive readiness technology to assess both brain and heart. Omegawave can be found at omegawave.com and you can follow them on Twitter @omegawave.

This episode is also sponsored by Athlete Monitoring the world’s most comprehensive, versatile and cost-effective Athlete Health & Performance Management platform for elite sports. You can find their website at athletemonitoring.com or on Twitter @athletemonitor

Keep up to date with everything that is going on with the podcast by following on Twitter @strengthofsci or visiting strengthofscience.com.

Enjoy

PP