Your Sprint Profile player wins you moments. Explosive, dominant in the first 30 metres, dangerous in 1v1 situations.

And then they disappear.

Not because they’re unfit. Because they have a massive speed ceiling sitting on top of a thin aerobic base — and when that base runs out, there’s nothing left.

SRR above 1.90. The gap is huge. The fix is specific.

Off-season: Aerobic base first. Not sprints. Not intervals. Cardiac output work.

In-season: Volume managed tightly. Posterior chain every single week. Non-negotiable.

This is exactly what the Sprint Profile program in Profiled Performance is built around.

🎯 SPECIAL OFFER 15% off, Code: TMC15

Athlete Profiled Program’s normally at €49 - send athletes you know to this, or get it for them. See here;

https://profiledperformance.com/athletes

Squad bundles for coaches with a planned season designed for the 3 profiles after you’ve tested them and also individual athletic development programs for every athlete on your team including gym work specific to each profile. This is your entire S&C Coach in a package.

Check out here: https://profiledperformance.com/coaches

Coach Planners or bespoke programs for specific sports/seasons made programs from €25 to €99. Make your life and planning easier.

https://profiledperformance.com/shop

Periodised across all four seasons.

Posterior chain protocols built in.

Offer closes Sunday night.

Kevin

TMC Performance

www.profiledperformance.com/

Here’s something nobody says out loud at coaching courses.

When you run the same conditioning session for every player on your panel — same reps, same distances, same intensity — you’re not managing load. You’re gambling with it.

Your sprint athletes get overreached on aerobic volume they can’t tolerate. Your aerobic athletes get put through speed sessions their nervous system can’t adapt to. Your hybrid players just… exist. Never pushed in either direction.

Impellizzeri and colleagues showed it clearly: generic group-average training loads fail to address individual differences and increase injury risk at both ends of the capacity spectrum.

Your physio’s injury log already knows this. Your GPS data already shows it. You just haven’t had the framework to act on it.

That framework is coming. Stay with me.

Kevin

TMC Performance

www.profiledperformance.com/

Read more

Here’s something nobody says out loud at coaching courses.

When you run the same conditioning session for every player on your panel — same reps, same distances, same intensity — you’re not managing load. You’re gambling with it.

Your sprint athletes get overreached on aerobic volume they can’t tolerate. Your aerobic athletes get put through speed sessions their nervous system can’t adapt to. Your hybrid players just… exist. Never pushed in either direction.

Impellizzeri and colleagues showed it clearly: generic group-average training loads fail to address individual differences and increase injury risk at both ends of the capacity spectrum.

Your physio’s injury log already knows this. Your GPS data already shows it. You just haven’t had the framework to act on it.

That framework is coming. Stay with me.

Kevin

TMC Performance

www.profiledperformance.com/

lab. No force plate. No budget.

Here’s all you need:

Test 1; 40m Sprint. Time the last 10m section. Convert to m/s. That’s your player’s MSS, their absolute speed right now.

Test 2; 6-Minute Cooper Run. Mark a 200m oval on your pitch using cones. Players run as many laps as possible in 6 minutes. Total distance ÷ 100 = MAS in km/h.

MSS minus MAS = ASR.

That single number tells you which of three profiles your player belongs to; Sprint, Hybrid, or Aerobic. And from there, exactly how they should train in every phase of the season.

Run both tests on the same day. Record the numbers. You’ll be using them for everything that follows.

Kevin

TMC Performance

www.profiledperformance.com/

Not as separate ambitions — as the same thing. A player who explores, who reads the game and tries things and searches for the best team option, is the player who, when it matters, knows exactly what to exploit. That is the argument of this series.

Let the game be the first teacher

Over five articles, we build from the theory to the training pitch. We cover how learning actually works, how to design sessions around it, and how to plan across a season — or a childhood — so that exploration is protected, not squeezed out. At the end, you will find full session templates and planning frameworks you can use straight away.

But first: why does any of this matter?

We want players to be creative, brave, and successful. Not as separate ambitions, but as the same thing. A player who explores - who tries things, reads the game, searches for the right option - is the player who, when it matters, knows exactly what to exploit. Explore to exploit is not a coaching slogan. It is how learning actually works.

Too much of coaching still treats these as a trade-off. Spend time exploring, or spend time refining. Be expressive, or be reliable. This series argues that framing is wrong - and costly. The players and teams who are most effective under pressure are the ones who were given the freedom to search, fail, and discover first. Exploitation - the reliable, high-quality execution that wins games - is only possible if exploration has already done its work.

In coaching and practice design, explore and exploit is often framed as a planning problem: how much time should athletes spend trying new solutions versus refining what already works? From an ecological dynamics lens, that framing is too narrow. Exploring is not something we schedule(although we can design to explore); it is something players do continuously as they self-organise in response to the information and constraints around them. The coach’s job is to design environments that make that exploration purposeful - so that what players discover, they can then use.

Ecological dynamics starts with the idea that human movement systems are complex, self-organising organisms with many degrees of freedom. Rather than being programmed from the top down, order in behaviour emerges from the interaction of constraints acting on the performer. The role of a coach, then, is not to specify movement solutions, but to design environments in which useful solutions become more likely to emerge.

IN this series not only will we delve into the why, when where and how? I will build out frameworks for coaches to implement “Explore to exploit” methods into your traingin sessions and build micro and meso cycles to track it in the short and medium term.

Read more

Two players. Same squad. Same pre-season programme.

One thrives. One breaks down four weeks in.

It’s not bad luck. It’s a profiling problem.

When you train a speed-dominant athlete the same way you train an endurance-dominant athlete, someone is always doing the wrong session. The neuromuscular load doesn’t match their capacity. The posterior c…

Read more

Every player on your panel has two numbers that matter more than any GPS metric you’re currently looking at.

Their top sprint speed. And their aerobic ceiling.

The gap between those two numbers is called Anaerobic Speed Reserve — ASR. And that gap is different for every single player you train.

That difference is why the same session destroys one pla…

Read more

In Part 1, we established that sport is a complex system — that skill is a relationship between a performer and an environment, and that environments grow the behaviours we see.

In Part 2, we looked at the practical tools available to coaches: constraints manipulation, representative task design, and the value of variability.

But there is a layer underneath all of that. A layer that often gets ignored in the technical conversations about practice design and ecological dynamics.

The athlete still has to be willing to explore.

And that willingness — or the absence of it — is almost entirely psychological. Contextual psychology you could call it (if that’s not an oxymoron).

The athlete will have a “psychology”. Their embedded constraints and support system and experiences at home and growing up will form a large part of that. As coaches how we meet that is the critical interaction. It’s not easy.

What I have found anecdotally in recent years is coaches and organisations dismissing players because of their parents. The parents are difficult (believe me I know this) so the child suffers.

Read more

How do we actually design those environments?

Because accepting the theory is one thing. Standing on a pitch on a Tuesday night with twenty players, a parent watching from the car park, and thirty minutes before the lights go off is another.

This is where the rubber meets the road.

Read more

Read that again slowly.

Now think about a game of Gaelic Football. Or basketball. Or rugby. Players interacting with players. Players interacting with space. With time. With scorelines, weather, crowd noise, their own nervous systems. And from all of that interaction — from all of that beautiful, messy, unpredictable chaos — behaviour emerges.

That is a complex system.

Read more

How Coaches Can Learn by Doing and Positively Impact Others?

Ecological dynamics fundamentally reframes the coach’s role—not as a director who transmits techniques, but as a designer of environments that invite exploration, adaptation, and genuine learning for both coach and athlete.

This approach means “learning by doing” is not just for performers, but for coaches as well. By engaging actively with their practice, adapting environments, and reflecting in real time, coaches model and promote the kind of learning they hope to inspire in others.

Read more

Get ideas around introducing and developing skills in Gaelic football, constraining your practices fo specific outcomes, more game-like sessions, better decision‑making under new rules, and a repeatable model they can carry from underage to adult teams.

We had @GaelicSense deliver on introducing skills (demo’s and practices on evasion and dummy skills), @iGaelicCoach deliver on developing a game model and connecting that on the pitch and @fhsperformance presented practical and data on designing practices around pitch sizes, numbers and the physical impacts these have on players.

You can get the conference here;

https://tmcperform.gumroad.com/l/fethard_GF_Conf_25

and I’m giving a 15% discount for the weekend. Just this weekend. The code is: xpl0hr1

There is some conference related package options also available with other products like my Constraints led approach for Gaelic Football Ebook or adjoining video course. Check out here tmcperform.gumroad.com

You’ve now seen how to:

- Spot when isolated drills or SSG’s alone aren’t preparing players for match day (Email 1)

- Use one constraint to make games teach better decisions (Email 2)

- Link Tuesday’s sessions directly to Sunday’s scoreboard (Email 3)

- Build principles of play that give your team a clear identity (Email 4)

This isn’t theory. It’s a practical system I’ve used with my own teams and shared at conferences like Fethard and all the other courses I’ve ran. But most importantly have had success with on the field.– and it’s all available as a complete Coaching Game Model Pack, but only for the next 48 hours.

The Bundle: €199 [your price – e.g. 149] (save €20 vs buying separately)

- CLA Ebook: Step-by-step framework with the coaching story and a clear theoretical approach to building your coaching capacity - 34.99

- CLA Video Course: Full sessions on pitch, in animations, images and more (kickouts, transitions, set plays) - 97.00

- Fethard GF Conference 2025: Principles of play deep dive + slides/recordings - 89.00

However, I’m adding another 15% off with a special discount just off this email

Who it’s for:

Coaches tired of generic drills or games who want their team making better decisions under pressure, with a clear “how we play” identity that shows up in championship games.

Coaches who continually go to coach education events but never quite know how to put it all together thereafter - i specifically go after that feeling of helplessness and confusion - with a framework in the video series.

Here is the discount code: xpl0hr1

**48hr Deadline:** This pack price ends [specific time, e.g. Sunday midnight]. No extensions, no repeat discounts – if you’ve been waiting, this is it. The video course will grow in its capacity, but so will the price…get in on the ground floor.

Coaching Bundle - CLA & Principles of Play Package

If you’ve already got one piece, reply and I’ll sort a custom loyalty price.

Thanks for reading this far,

Kevin

Over the last few emails, we’ve looked at how to move beyond generic drills and design games that actually prepare players for what they face on match day. Today, I want to zoom out and ask a bigger question: what exactly are you trying to train your team to do in those games?

That’s where principles of play come in.

Principles of play are the key ideas that guide how your team behaves in different moments of the game – in possession, out of possession, and in transition. Things like how you want to support the ball, how you defend the D, how you attack space, or how you react immediately after a turnover. They sit underneath your tactics and game plans and give players a consistent “compass” no matter what the opposition does.

Without clear principles, training can feel busy but disconnected.
You might have good drills, plenty of effort, and lots of coaching points – but players are hearing a different message every night. One session focuses on work‑rate, the next on shape, the next on shooting, without a clear thread tying it all together. On game day, they’re left trying to remember a list of instructions instead of relying on a small number of shared ideas.

With clear principles, everything starts to join up.

You can:

• Plan sessions that repeatedly expose players to the same key problems and solutions.

• Use constraints and games to bring those principles to life instead of just talking about them.

• Help players make quicker, better decisions because they know “how we play” in key moments.

At the “Coaching through principles of play” conference on the various presenters walk through how to actually build these principles for your own context – not just copy someone else’s buzzwords – and then connect them to your training design and game model. It’s aimed at coaches who want their team to have a recognisable identity, not just a collection of drills and set plays.

In the next email, I’ll show you how I bundle this together with the CLA resources so you have a full pathway: from the principles you believe in, to the games you design, to how your team performs when the pressure comes on.

Talk soon,
Kevin

To have a look at the why, what and when of coaching through principles, see the conference package here with all 4 presentations and practical’s link to conference

For deeper reading, here is my CLA for GF Book link to book

Gaelic Football Video course ( link to video course )

In the last email, I showed how one small constraint can turn a simple practice change up into a game that actually teaches players to solve real problems. Today I want to go one step further: how do you make sure what you do on a Tuesday shows up on the scoreboard on Sunday?

Think about your last few games.

If you’re like most coaches, the same patterns keep appearing – maybe your lads are slow to offer support on turnovers, maybe your kickout structure breaks down under pressure, or maybe your forwards struggle to create good shots when the game tightens up. Yet when you look back at your sessions, they don’t always mirror those exact game situations.

That’s the gap we need to close.

Instead of planning sessions around isolated themes (“handling”, “tackling”, “shooting”), start by naming one clear match‑day problem you want to improve this week. Then design your main game around that problem and make sure the same cues, pressure, and decisions from Sunday are present in training. The “fitness” and “skills” are still there, but they’re embedded in the actual game problems your players face.

Over time, this creates a clear line of sight:

• Game video or observations on Sunday →

• One or two key problems identified →

• Targeted games and constraints on Tuesday/Thursday →

• Players recognising and solving those problems faster in the next match.

This is where a constraints‑led approach and clear principles of play really come together. You’re not just running good‑looking sessions; you’re deliberately training the decisions and behaviours that define how your team plays.

In my CLA for Gaelic Football Video course ( link to video course ), I break this down with full examples – from the game problem, to session design, to what it actually looked like on the pitch and how it showed up in matches. If you want a clearer blueprint for linking your weekly training to your game model, that’s exactly what it’s built for.

In the next email, I’ll dive deeper into principles of play themselves – what they are, and how to make sure they’re more than just words on a page.

Talk soon,
Kevin

For deeper reading, here is my CLA for GF Book link to book

Hi Coaches,

In the last email I talked about the frustration of neat & tidy‑looking sessions that don’t actually change what happens on match day. Today I want to show you how one small shift in how you design a game can start to fix that.

Let’s take a simple example you’ll recognise: An unwillingness to kick the ball.
Traditionally, we might set this up as a tidy drill or even a pattern play: fixed patterns, no real chaos, everyone mostly knows what’s coming next. It looks organised, but the decisions players have to make are nothing like what they face in a championship game.

A constraints‑led approach flips that.

Instead of asking “What drill can I use for this skill?”, you ask “What game problem do I want to recreate, and what constraints will guide players towards better solutions?” Then you tweak things like space, numbers, rules, and scoring so that the behaviour you want becomes the best option for the players.

Using the Kicking examples again, you might:

• Change the pitch size or shape so the key space appears where you want players to recognise it. in a transitional game you could get you top 3 or most attacking players to start on a line, endline or sideline and they cannot move off the line until ball passes a certain point in transition, the defensive 45 in Gaelic Football for instance. This constraint automatically creates space that might invite kicking into these players

• Add a time constraint, from possession (a KO win or turnover) to shot must happen in 20 seconds. This will be messy early and they will often fail to get the shot off. IN time recievers will create space and position themselves better and possession players will be pressed to kick it. Why? Ball moves faster than the man, a kick attacks faster than running or hand passing.

• Add a simple scoring reward that rewards the exact behaviour you want (e.g. extra points for shots taken with 2 kicks in the play, a kick wide to start your build up play, a one bounce pass into the forward).

You’re not telling players what to do step‑by‑step. You’re designing the game so that the game itself starts teaching them. Over a few sessions, they begin to recognise cues faster, adapt under pressure, and link their actions to the principles of play you care about.

This is the heart of how I use a constraints‑led approach in Gaelic football:
start from the game problem, design the constraint, then let players explore and refine solutions inside that game.

If you’d like more ready‑to‑use examples like this, plus a clearer framework for building your own games, I’ve put everything into a dedicated CLA resource for Gaelic football coaches.

It walks through the approach step‑by‑step and shows you how to apply it in your own context.

I’ll share more practical ideas in the next email, including how to connect Tuesday’s game to Sunday’s scoreboard.

Talk soon,
Kevin

P.S. If you want more examples like this, the CLA ebook and adjoiing video course walks through the approach step‑by‑step for Gaelic football (but i believe useful in all field sports). See below and get a special 15% off today only links here;

CLA for GF Book link to book

CLA for GF Video link to video course

Hi Coaches,

Let me start with a familiar story.

We have all observed or maybe worked in a team where training looked “class” from the sideline – cones everywhere, lots of movement, plenty of talk. But when the heat came on in games, the same issues kept showing up: poor support, rushed decision‑making, and lads defaulting to habits that weren’t helping them win or even be competitive.

You probably know that feeling as a coach.

Session after session, you’re putting in serious effort, but:

• Players look sharp in drills and then freeze under pressure.

• The quality of decisions in games doesn’t match what you see in training.

• You’re not fully sure if what you’re doing on a Tuesday is actually changing anything on a Sunday.

It’s not that the players don’t care or that you’re not prepared. The problem is that a lot of traditional drills and even small sided games (useful but overused) simply don’t represent the real game. They can be tidy, organised, and “busy”, but they don’t challenge players to read the game, adapt to constraints, and express your principles of play.

That’s where a constraints‑led approach (how) and clear principles of play (what & when) come in.

When you start designing sessions around the actual problems your players face in matches – the decisions, the pressure, the space, the numbers – you stop guessing. Training becomes a real rehearsal for the game, not just a warm‑up for it.

Over the next few emails, I’m going to show you:

• How to make small changes to your games that create big changes in decision‑making.

• How to connect your principles of play to what you do every night on the pitch.

• How to move from “busy” sessions to ones that genuinely transfer to match day.

If that sounds like where you want to take your coaching this season, keep an eye on your inbox. I’ll share practical examples you can plug straight into your next session.

Talk soon,
Kevin

Unlock a full-season Gaelic football coaching blueprint that joins the Fethard “Coaching the Principles of Gaelic Football” Conference with the CLA coaching book in one bundle.

tmcperform.gumroad

​
Use the conference to learn about developing a game model, principles of play and strategic framework, then lean on the CLA book for step‑by‑step, constraints‑led training games that show players exactly how and when to execute those principles.

tmcperform.gumroad​

Ideal for club and inter-county coaches who want to move beyond drills, design better small-sided games, and build a game model that fits their culture, players and philosophy.

• “Normal price if bought separately: €119. Bundle today for €97 and get lifetime access to the Fethard Principles Conference (what & why) plus the CLA Gaelic Football book (how & when).”

• “Perfect for coaches planning their 2026 season: watch the conference this week, build your game model, then plug sessions straight out of the CLA book into your weekly plan.”

Bundle specifically here; https://tmcperform.gumroad.com/l/lpqecy

I’m giving you guys as subscribers a special open for 48 hours where you have 20% off any product at tmcperform.gumroad​

Code: zz3owjz

Enjoy

Kevin

Part 2: Evidence Supporting Learning Through Doing (Ecological Dynamics)

Robust evidence from both research and practice demonstrates that learning through doing—rather than passively absorbing is…

Read more