Books for returning swimmer (sans coach)

Your doing what I did a year ago, although I never swam in age-group or college and started late in life... I started with the Janet Evans book and followed the workouts for a few months and watched a lot of the video's on YouTube, I learned freestyle from emulating Ian Thorpe as viewed on YouTube. I did it so well that a local USA coach complemented me on my execution of it. Which proves that watching and imitation do work.I needed a coach to learn backstroke, breaststroke and Im still learning the fly! As these stroke are highly technical, so unless your gifted I strongly suggest finding a good coach that has an eye for stroke. You don't want to build bad habits (like I did ) into your routine. (btw stay away from the 'expert' on "Expert Villiage" on YouTube.:)) Ive read most of the books mentioned and in my opinion; 1. Janet Evans Total Swimming is a great way to ease into a workout routine, in small steps. The heart of the book is Janet's workouts, these kept me challenged as a beginning competitive swimmer for the first few months. It also contains some simple dryland exercises. 2. The Fit Swimmer (Marianne Brems) has 120 workouts that are separated into Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced. This is good book, again for beginning workouts and getting a routine going. 3. The Swimming Drill Book was a waste of money for me 4. Mastering Swimming (Montgomery/Chambers) is a little more advanced, it basically teaches the hows and whys of the modern workouts. Some basics of stroke, but its not a book of workouts, Its a lot of talk about what most every day USA/USMS swimmer takes for granted. 5. Complete Conditioning for Swimming (Salo / Riewald) This is a dryland exercise book. I have read other books, however there really is no substitution for a coach...If you can, even a private lesson or two will save you hours of frustration and wasted effort. My books now sit silent and gathering dust...

Has anyone mentioned the Swim Coaching Bible? Amazon.com: The Swim Coaching Bible (9780736036467): *** Hannula, Nort Thornton: Books It offers a nice range of articles by great coaches.

I don't have a swimming background and started swimming five years or so ago after a knee injury curtailed my running career. I agree with and have used some of the websites such as Swim Smooth and Go swim as well as youtube. I swim with a masters group three days per week. I have found the following books by Blythe Lucero to be helpful: The Lucero's 100 Best Swimming Drills (good photos, nice drill progression) Technique Swim Workouts (Coach Blythe Swim Workouts 1) Shape Up!: 100 Conditioning Workouts (Swim Workouts 2) The first book provides a very good set of drills and progressions for ech of the four strokes as well as clear photos. The next two provide workouts for each of the four competitive strokes with a specific focal point per workout with a nice progression per stroke. The Technique Swim Workout book is more heavily technique oriented and has work outs up to 2,500 yards/meters. The second book is more conditioning oriented with workouts up to 3,500 yards/meters although it still contains progressive workouts for all four strokes. I use them to put together workouts on the day that I don't swim with our Masters group. I find that I have to supplement the workouts a little to get the yardage up, especially with the Swim Technique book. The last two books also uses/reference specific drills in from her drill book so they all tie together. I understand that she is putting together a more advanced workout book which I will buy when it comes out. I also like Salo's Complete Conditioning for Swimming for dryland training and Hanson, Hanson, and Bernhardt's Workouts in a Binder for Swimmers, Triathletes, and Coaches for addditional workouts. The latter has distance, middle distance, and sprint freestyle workouts as well as workouts for individual strokes and IM. The workouts are typically longer distance than the Lucero books and some top out at 6000 yards/meters for the distance workouts.

what are your goals? swim faster faster can help you improve follow usms blogs

If you are a former swimmer do what you did when you were at the top of your game. There is so much on this forum you don't need to purchase a book. Some great workouts, some good videos and lots of advice.

As these stroke are highly technical, so unless your gifted I strongly suggest finding a good coach that has an eye for stroke. As it turns out, I am gifted. My coach, who was also Steve Lundquist's coach, predicted I'd make it to the Olympics, but life hands you what it hands you, and I left swimming in my teens to go to work to help support my family. Another coach offered to take me to Florida to train (when the team disbanded he took a position with a university there) but my mother refused. I can understand why, and honestly, I probably wouldn't have been happy. I don't regret my decision. But now that life is a bit more stable for me, I want to get back in the pool. The only stroke I wasn't competitive in was butterfly, and dammit, I still can't swim that stroke worth a lick! Very frustrating. I might need to find a coach to get me on the right track with butterfly. My books now sit silent and gathering dust... Well, I have mine now, and I'm devouring them. I've taken a stroke off my pool length in freestyle right off the bat, and I'm adjusting my strength training routine. More to come!

My advice would be to see if you can get these books from your local library first before investing in them. I currently have Complete Conditioning for Swimming checked out and based on what I've read I will probably buy it when the book comes due. I prefer to own books so that I can mark them up and refer to them whenever I like and carry them wherever I please without worrying about keeping them too long or damaging them. Besides, where I live, the libraries are horrible. So I got 4 of the books, and I only wish I had more time in the week to read and apply what I'm learning.

If you are a former swimmer do what you did when you were at the top of your game. There is so much on this forum you don't need to purchase a book. Some great workouts, some good videos and lots of advice. I agree, but I do like the books, too, because they're portable. I can't always be online. I like to use a variety of sources. Excellent forum, tho! Wonderful resource. Oh, btw, doing what I did when I was at the top of my game doesn't work anymore. It's been too long. The sport has advanced while I have not.

what are your goals? Honestly? My goal is to compete nationally. I don't care if it takes 10 years. I would like to be competitive at the state level in 2 years. (I've spent the previously 2 years getting in shape again generally, with walking, hiking, cycling, and strength training.) and competitive nationally before I'm 50. I may not get there, but if not, so be it. That's what I'm shooting for. swim faster faster can help you improve follow usms blogs Thanks for the links! There's so much to absorb. My challenge now is triage -- choosing what to focus on first, second, third, etc.

Well, do share. What books have benefited you and how? Breakthrough Swimming took the stroke off my 25yds. I was pulling too shallow. Gave me some nice visualization to get a feel for where I needed to be. Just got done with my first modified dry-land workout, based on Complete Conditioning for Swimming. It feels good. Will take some time to see how it works out. But I'm optimistic. I've also expanded my warm-ups and cool-downs based on Mastering Swimming, and will be incorporating some of the drills and more kicking next time I'm in the pool. Swimming Fastest is going to take more time to absorb before I start using it. I'll likely begin by shaping my general workouts (pool/land) and improving my basic stroke forms with the 3 shorter books first -- along with resources on this site/forum -- then tackle Fastest to improve over that. I've had the books less than a week, so I'm still working my way through. It'll be a while before I'm able to get all the juice out of them.