Strength endurance for a hybrid engine, built on a hill.
This is an extra session I set for a young hybrid-profile soccer player, a rep-level athlete who finds muscle hard to build and easy to lose. So even her running is built to develop leg strength, not just fitness.
Why a hill? Uphill running is a force tool. Higher force through the leg, a shorter, more powerful stride, and a fraction of the soreness cost of flat sprints or heavy plyos. She gets a genuine strength stimulus out of running(for now, that will change), which is exactly what her body struggles to hold onto.
The design is descending: three blocks of 40s, 30s, 20s, three efforts each, walking back down between. As the efforts shorten, the output holds in a consistent band.
Look at the run of even spikes through the middle of the trace, each one a hill effort, each dip the walk back.
That is how you bank quality volume without fully fatiguing her.
And it has to be low-cost, because it sits on top of two gym days and two team sessions. Descending duration and full walk-back recovery are how you add a stimulus without adding fatigue.
For: hybrid profile, pre-season, 45 to 60 minutes, a bike and a hill.
Want a session built around your profile and your actual weekly load, not a template? DM me PROFILE.
Kevin Mulcahy, TMC Performance Coaching
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Performance Coaching for anyone who wants to improve their health & performance in sport or work
Kevin is a Performance Coach to anyone who wants to improve their general performance be they athlete or professional.
Spring and size. An off-season session I set for a 1-2-1 online client, an aerobic-profile athlete.
Why this, why now? Off-season is the window to attack what engine athletes lack: top-end spring and force. That, plus upper body size and strength, is the stuff that leaks away fast once games start. So we build it now, while there’s no match to protect.
The shape of it: plenty of exercises, low to moderate volume on each. Light and crisp on the plyos and jumps, not chasing records. As much rest as needed, stay fresh. Accelerations grow from 5m out to 20m as it goes. Then tempos to keep the aerobic base ticking, then upper strength and hypertrophy to hold the size.
Read the graph and you’ll see it: sharp repeated spikes with clean recovery between, average HR difference only 17 bpm. That’s neural work, not a lung-buster. The rest is doing its job.
Who’s it for? Aerobic or hybrid-lean profiles, off or early pre-season, 60 to 75 minutes, commercial gym with a bit of track.
Want a programme built around your profile and your life, not a template? DM me PROFILE.
The full session:
Speed and power:
- Overhead band hold with banded marches x3, with 3 exaggerated slow accels
- Rudimentary hops (forward, back, lateral, single-leg) plus acceleration 10m, x4, walk recovery
- Reactive box jump plus low squat broad series plus lateral hop and stick, with acceleration 15m, x2 sets
- Depth jump x3 plus acceleration 20m, x2 sets
- LLRR bound plus ankling plus mini bound to acceleration, x2 sets
- Tempos 10:30, x9 in sets of 3 (run or watt bike, depending on leg fatigue and recent training)
Upper strength and hypertrophy:
- Incline bench plus 3-exercise KB circuit (cross raises, upright rows, inverted pulls, 32 to 40kg total), x5/4/3
- Chins to max plus isometric 45-degree cable hold, x3, 5s holds, x3 sets
- Traps, x2 to 3 sets: kneeling cable rope pull-down x12, frontal hanging DB shrugs x12, face pull x12
An hour that feels almost too easy, and it’s the one most people skip.
Another 90 minute aerobic session, this time done by myself. This was just using the equipment, weather and the environment provided.
I’d often just cycle to a trail, hill or a pitch to mix up the session and do some running. Cycle towards home again. Sometimes add more runs if some sort, sometimes just extend the cycle.
This was cycle to an old grass soccer pitch under a mountain, do tempos, cycle again, find a hill on way back, do easy hill runs. Cycle home.
What’s important here is it’s just general aerobic capacity training. Don’t get too high, don’t get too low. I wouldn’t get too worried about zone perfection.
Sometimes I make these real easy, moderate spikes in effort or even really hard. It’s all done by feel.
I’d advise anyone to do these 1-2 times a week for health above all else.
Why do this? This is the session that builds your base engine.
Train here and everyday effort gets cheaper: you recover faster, hold energy longer, handle stress better. Skip it and every hard session costs you more. Having a good aerobic capacity helps regulate us not only in training or sport, but general life stresses as well.
Goal is general fitness and feeling good day to day, and you’ve 45–60 minutes? This is your bread-and-butter, once or twice a week. If you can eke out 90-105 mins, do it. I even if once a fortnight. The build will be slower but still worth it.
Want a session or program built around your life, not a template? DM me
27/07/2026
“For the first time I’ve come across an S&C coach who thinks the way I do.”
That’s from Shane Morley at Tooreen Hurling Club in Mayo, Ireland and it’s the line that matters most to me, because the whole idea behind these programs is simple: a squad isn’t one athlete.
Your players have different engines, and they shouldn’t all be trained the same way, on the pitch or in the gym.
Shane’s coaching hurling. The planner’s and bundles are built for all field sports.
And that’s the point, the thinking doesn’t belong to one code. The programs for athletes are sport and season specific. The planners for coaches cover all the players on your squad.
Profile your athletes, train them to what they actually need, and the framework travels across any field sport.
They’re early in their block, so this isn’t a results claim it’s a coach who knows his stuff (and is a Physio also)
looking at the structure, the profiling, and the support behind it, and saying it holds up. That means more to me at this stage than any number.
If you plan your own squad’s conditioning and you’ve ever thought “these lads shouldn’t all be doing the same session” we think alike.
Link in bio.
&C
26/07/2026
Your aerobic athlete’s ceiling isn’t in their lungs. It’s in the gym.
Some will still avoid because it’s not their strength. Some will over-do chasing a weakness that damages a strength (major issue in sub elite Gaelic Games, Soccer & Rugby). Hitting the right dose is key.
They can already repeat. What they can’t do is produce force fast, and no amount of running fixes that.
So the session goes: bike to prime, isometrics and build-up RDLs to prepare the tissue, then the actual work. Hang sn**ch, into a reactive box jump. Heavy Deadlifts at 85%+. Core paired.
Heavy & fast. Add Plyo’s on the pitch. That’s where the spring comes from.
Stand-alone day. Not one to stack on top of field training. Off Season, early pre season or a week off in season.
Save this for pre-season.
Where does your “endurance animal” athlete’s power work actually live?
Find your profile, get the program for you, at www.profiledperformance.com or link in bio
Kevin Mulcahy, Coach
Build the youth athlete from the ground up. Give them the best chance possible to avoid injuries in their future.
One of the major new updates and programs include;
The youth pathway; L1 Foundation through to L3 Develop. A deliberate layered order, not a scaled-down senior programme.
Link in Bio
Or just check out the programs on the site here
https://profiledperformance.com/shop/youth
Save this for when start to see the real need for your son or daughter to get strong and robust, with the help of a professional.
&c
Four things have gone live on the site recently.
The profiler — two field test scores in, your profile out. Ninety seconds.
The athlete programmes — now split by profile and by phase of season. A sprint profile in-season gets a different plan to the same athlete in the off-season.
The youth pathway — L1 Foundation through to L3 Develop. A build order, not a scaled-down senior programme.
The master planners — now per sport, squad level. Whole panel grouped by profile, blocks and restore weeks already laid out.
Walked through all four in the video.
If you are not sure where to start, start with the profiler. Everything keys off that one number. Link in bio.
Full Video at https://m.youtube.com/
Or Link in Bio
Save this for when you are building your next block.
22/07/2026
The aerobic athlete is usually the one who can handle another session. So we give them one, then waste it on more running.
They don’t need more engine. They’ve got the engine. What they’re missing is spring and acceleration.
So the extra day goes here instead: plyos, tempos, throw, maybe sprints of the days work out well away from games..
Twenty metres of hops and bounds, then tempos run hard off the back of them — potentiated, so the speed shows up without all-out sprinting. Upper body to finish.
The plyos aren’t a warm-up. They’re what makes the tempos worth running.
Save this for pre-season.
What does your aerobic athlete’s extra session actually look like?
Kevin Mulcahy, Coach
21/07/2026
The hip hinge is one pattern doing four different jobs; most programmes only ever use one of them. 🔄
Same movement. Hips back, neutral spine, posterior chain through hip extension.
What changes is load, velocity and density:
1️⃣ Strength: heavy and slow. Builds the floor.
2️⃣ Power: light and fast. Expresses it. (Peak power in the deadlift is ~30–40% 1RM, not the heavy end.)
3️⃣ Repeatability: density work. What’s left when you’re tired at 60 minutes.
4️⃣ Restoration: low dose, restore week. And low dose holds the adaptation.
Which job you emphasise depends on the athlete.
Sprint profiles use the gym for a max strength base and structural protection.
Hybrid needs it all.
Aerobic profiles need the power end, that’s where their upside lives.
Swipe for the dose on each. Save it for your next block.
Second-half breakdown isn’t always a fitness problem.
It’s a posterior chain problem. 🦵
The hamstrings, glutes and calves absorb the load in every sprint, decel and change of direction.
Under fatigue, they’re the first thing to fail. Most programmes train the engine and ignore the brakes.
The fix is accessory work, building robustness in those particularly hammered areas, not rehab: Copenhagens, Nordics, hamstring work — every week, non-negotiable.
Save this and send it to whoever’s still skipping it.
Unfortunately now we have reverted back to bad habits in athletic development. Athletes are doing Hyrox or body building routines as well as trying to play a serious sport, they simply don’t fit.
We need to nail the important elements of our preparation. Posterior specific training is a huge part of that, and it isn’t something 6 sets of 3 reps of deadlifting is going to sort
Check out our programs in the bio at profiledperformance.com
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