489: Bill Smart on Isometrics, Flywheels, and Elastic Power Development

Today’s guest is Bill Smart. Bill is a sport scientist and physical preparation coach specializing in elite fight-sports performance. As the founder of Smarter Performance and the Strength & Conditioning lead for the CORE MMA team, Bill integrates cutting-edge evidence with real-world high-performance systems to enable combat athletes to show up on fight day in optimal physiological condition.

Much of the conversation in sports performance hinges on speed and power development, or conditioning, as a stand-alone conversation. Sport itself is dynamic and combines elements of speed, strength, and endurance in a dynamic space. Training should follow the same considerations to be truly alive and effective.

In the episode, Bill shares his journey from cycling and rowing to combat sports. He discusses how long isometric holds develop both physical and mental resilience, and their implementation in his programming. The conversation dives into muscle-oxygen dynamics, integrating ISOs with conditioning, and how testing shapes his approach. Bill also explores flywheel eccentrics, fascicle-length development, and why sprinting is a key element for maintaining elastic power in elite fighters.

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Timestamps 0:00 – Bill’s coaching journey and early mentors 6:04 – The importance of movement observation and intuition 11:35 – Why athletes plateau and how to identify limiting factors 20:42 – Strength training principles that actually transfer 30:01 – Using movement variability and play in training 40:36 – Coaching communication and creating connection 52:09 – The role of curiosity and creativity in coaching longevity 1:00:55 – Key lessons from years of coaching experience

Quotes from Bill Smart

"I know Gus and Angus Ross, who is one of my colleagues at HPCNZ he talks about those long ISOs as being basically your average motivated athletes training method because it's uncomfortable you've got to be very motivated to move through it." "Soon as there's a bit of like involuntary muscle action, you're probably in quite a productive place in terms of timeframe." "The cognitive element is something that gets brushed over a little bit, especially from scientific populations, which is interesting because essentially the brain governs everything that we do." "I do think that it's quite common that we often disassociate cognitive from physical." "Breathing is one of those other things that plays a large role in some of the efficiency components." "Whatever the intervention is matches what we need for the sport and not an excess. And for fighters a lot of the times, conditioning is definitely not something that's lacking. So it's it's great to have these other means to elicit some of that." "Skills training is like the absolute most important thing. So basically all training from a conditioning or strength standpoint needs to be maximally efficient to get to design results for an athlete." "The primary area that you find mixed martial arts athletes will fatigue is the upper body because of like all the clinch work, the grappling work."

About Bill Smart Bill Smart is a sport scientist and physical preparation coach specialising in elite fight-sports performance. As the founder of Smarter Performance and the Strength & Conditioning lead for the CORE MMA team, Bill integrates cutting-edge evidence with real-world high-performance systems to enable combat athletes to show up on fight day in optimal physiological condition.