Why We Taper As a swimmer, the word “taper” is the greatest thing you can hear after a tough season of training. This usually means more broken swims, turn and dive work, higher intensity and lower volume. Older swimmers will taper for up to two weeks, where some of the younger swimmers won’t taper at all. We hear this word a lot around this time of year, but what does it really mean? Tapering off and reducing the volume of work that athletes do leading up to an event that...

At the end of Disney/Pixar’s Ratatouille, secondary antagonist Anton Ego realizes the meaning of Chef Gusteau’s famous motto, “anyone can cook.” Previously disdainful of the idea, Ego comes to understand that while not everyone will become a great artist (in this case a great chef), a great artist can come from anywhere. This means that everyone, regardless of circumstance or perceived talent, deserves to have their dreams nurtured and their full potential cultivated. Left unspoken but profoundly important, I think, is that whether someone becomes a great chef is almost...

Hamstring Flexibility = Deeper Kick The hamstrings are some of the most important muscles when it comes to everyday living. When it comes to swimming, strong hamstrings help bring our heels to our bottom during breaststroke kick, help with the upsweeping motion in dolphin kick, and are the foundation for explosive starts/turns. Today we will focus more on what optimal hamstring range of motion can help us with in swimming, especially with our dolphin kick. Below are two still shots of two of the best butterflyers in recent history (Kristoff...

Skills vs. Attributes Imagine you are on a school field trip to a remote little town on the coast. The trip leader signals for the bus to stop next to a small cliff that overlooks the beach that lies below and reveals the ocean at sunset. You are instructed to go and explore, but that the bus leaves in 15 minutes. You find a small trail that leads a little further down the cliff and you are able to see more of the beach and reveals just how awesome the...

Lat Importance: Stretching Last week, we talked about the importance of strengthening our lats, but this week we will focus on how to stretch those muscles. The latissimus dorsi, or the lats for short, play a huge role in shoulder function and health. Oftentimes, these muscles become tight and stiff after injury, surgery, immobilization, a lack of stretching, or repetitive lat overuse/overdevelopment (LIKE SWIMMING)! Because they act to extend and internally rotate the shoulder as well as depress the shoulder girdle, they can severely limit your ability to achieve an...

Coach Leanne wrote a great piece on Community. I wanted to share it with you all. The four pillars of SMAC are Legacy, Purpose, Belief in All, and Community. Our SMAC community runs much deeper than the 4-letters represented on our swim cap. While we share the commonality of chlorinated water, it is the relationships created on deck, in the pool, or in the stands that keeps us united. It’s no secret that the beginning of this season kicked off very differently than it has in the past. The pandemic...

Lat Importance Swimming recruits many muscles throughout the body, including the legs, hips, core, trunk and arms. All of these muscles contribute to efficient muscular movement that creates power in order to propel you through the water. However, coaches have recognized the particular importance of the latissimus dorsi (lat) muscle. This muscle is a large triangular muscle in the back. It starts at the lower half of the spine and hip and travels upwards to attach to the top of the upper arm. The lats are responsible for drawing the...

Tight Hip, Twisted Core I recently became aware of the importance of our hip flexors and how they affect the surrounding areas of the hip, lower back and even our hamstrings. Let’s understand how tight hip flexors can cause your hamstrings to feel tight ⁣⁣ The iliacus is a hip flexor muscle that lines the inside surface of your pelvic bone (or ilium) and also connects to the hip joint. When this muscle becomes tight, the ilium rotates forward into an anterior tilt position and changes the alignment of the...

Good Evening, A while back, Coach Tommy put out a great piece on the importance of improving every day. That idea falls under one of the four pillars that our staff has talked about in terms of what it will take from every person of this team to do for us to become the best team we can be. All four pillars that SMAC lives by are: Legacy - Leave it better than you found it Purpose - Work hard and have fun Belief in all- Growth mindset/Improve every day...

How to get Restorative sleep With stress running high in 2020, the importance of restful sleep is imperative for staying healthy. But just because you slept for 8 hours, doesn't mean it was restorative. In a somewhat personal experiment, I have put what I have learned into 5 different categories that I will break down in a 5-part-series. I used a sleep tracker called the Poar Vantage M to show us the results. Turns out, the amount of deep sleep and REM sleep greatly increased when we did these 5...