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...

How to get Restorative sleep: Part II 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 wil 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...

How To Get Restorative Sleep: Part I 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 wil 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 I did...

Student of the Game Lebron James was asked a question about the final play of the All-Star game five days after the event. His answer was a detailed response with no holes about the one quick play that happened at the end of the game. It had everyone buzzing over how he could remember everything in such vivid detail. Lebron has often been praised for his innate athletic ability. To be able to power through defenses just by being bigger and stronger. Is it really just how big and how...

Hold Fast, Stay True Two weekends ago, we had our first sanctioned meet since the February Divisionals down in Puyallup earlier this year. Although the weather was not inviting, it was still unbelievably refreshing to see the kids competing again. The road back to where we are now has been a long and adverse one. Before the days of GPS systems, travelers and fishermen out at sea relied on the stars to guide them to their destinations. It took a tremendous amount of experience to master this skill. This grew...

SMAC Tryout Information Come give us a look! Seattle Metropolitan Aquatic Club will be holding swimmer try outs at the following times: Dates: August 9 Evergreen Aquatic Center 12-3 PM August 14 View Ridge Pool 10:15-12:15 August 16 Evergreen Aquatic Center 12-3 PM August 23 Evergreen Aquatic Center 12-3 PM Please contact Derek to reserve a spot. CoachDerek@smac.email Before the evaluation: Families will reserve a 30 min window with Derek on one of the above dates. All evaluations will be individual unless swimmers are members of the same household. Day...

Seattle Metropolitan Families - I spent all of the last two nights watching the protests and am still processing what’s gone on the past few weeks. In reality these issues have been going on for hundreds of years. Some days, the life lessons are best taught in the pool. Today, those lessons are being taught by what is happening all around us. We need to acknowledge that many families face everyday issues of racism and injustice in their daily lives. SMAC needs to be an ally to those families and...

Visualization Steph Curry has always been an athlete that has shown continued progress and the will to turn adversity into an advantage. In his first collegiate game the nerves were high and he committed 13 turnovers. In his very next game, he put it behind him to score 32 points against Michigan. After this, he found continued success to lead his conference in scoring and he was 2nd in the nation among all freshman. By his junior season, he was leading all of college basketball in scoring. Steph found success...

Challenges Make Us Better The National Group was in a concentric phase for dryland. A lot of it was centered around moving fast and being explosive. One of the exercises we were doing was plyometric push-ups. Instead of doing normal clap push ups, instead we put forty-five pound plates on each side where they had to do a push up off the ground and land their hands on the plate. It started with just one plate on each side. As the session went on, I would look over and see...

This week USA Swimming released the rosters for the 2020 Zone Select Camp. SMAC’s Ella Jablonski was selected to attend the Western Zone Camp May 28-31 in Tempe, Arizona. Each year, USA Swimming selects 56 athletes (28 males and 28 females) ages 13-14 and 12-13 respectively for each of the four zone select camps. Seven athletes of each age and gender are first selected based on their LCM IMX score, then the fastest swimmer in the each zone in each of the Olympic events (50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1500...