Been looking for some books on how to swim "The Other Strokes." As it stands now, all I can do with some degree of proficiency is freestyle. Are there any books out there that are considered 'the books' when it comes to teaching ***, fly and back?
Thanks,
John
Not sure about books, but I think you'll probably get more out of the information available on forums such as this coupled with the huge amount of video on the net than you would from a static (and maybe dated) book. For example, as an example I can remember off the top of my head go to YouTube and search for
JimmyDShea swim lesson
I'm not recommending this as necessarily the best or only resource. It's just at the tip of my fingers. There's tons of stuff out there. Use The Net Luke!
Skip Montanaro
John get a coach or join a masters club that has a teaching coach not a workout specialist that does not teach. Most books are left to self interpretation. Many of the details are able to be interpreted in too many ways.
John get a coach or join a masters club that has a teaching coach not a workout specialist that does not teach. Most books are left to self interpretation. Many of the details are able to be interpreted in too many ways.
I learned to swim butterfly at age 44/45 from books and dvds. I couldn't find anyone willing to teach me in the "stroke improvement" classes I was taking. I don't know if they genuinely didn't know how to do fly, or they just thought an overweight 44 year old female couldn't possibly learn it.
(John, since we aren't allowed to mention specific titles, just send a personal message if you want to know which ones were most helpful to me.)
"Competitive Swimming: Techniques for Champions", by Mark Schubert, has pretty good underwater photos of all four strokes. It's an older book (1990) and may be out of print by now.
Anna Lea
Ripple it is no problem to mention a book as long as you are not selling it. Nathan's website and the book are related. But he may be OK to sell it on the forum, but I could not refer to a book on my website. I was warned not to do this. That is up to the forum bosses and I am not one.
I learned to swim butterfly at age 44/45 from books and dvds. I couldn't find anyone willing to teach me in the "stroke improvement" classes I was taking. I don't know if they genuinely didn't know how to do fly, or they just thought an overweight 44 year old female couldn't possibly learn it.
(John, since we aren't allowed to mention specific titles, just send a personal message if you want to know which ones were most helpful to me.)
I think you are much better off with a DVD than a book. I like the Go Swim videos from goswim.tv because they have a lot of good long sequences of excellent swimmers demonstrating excellent technique along with "common errors" and focal points that you can concentrate on while practicing. But unless you are gifted it will be very useful to have a good coach or instructor who can look at your stroke and point out problems. Failing that you can get yourself videoed. Check out their web site, in addition to selling the DVDs they have lots of articles and clips that demonstrate drills.
The Total Immersion people make DVDs that are more instructional, taking a step by step, drill by drill, approach to learning each stroke. Again, you are much better off if you have someone to watch and provide feedback because it is very easy to practice what you think you are supposed to be practicing while you're actually not.
Hopefully over the next few years someone will do a good job of creating and organizing a set of video clips that show good technique and common flaws etc. along with explanatory text or voice over that is freely available on the web. You can find a good set of clips at:
http://youtube.com/swimee
