As I was perusing the reviews for 100 Best Swimming Drills I thought to myself "Self, what do the USMS forumites have to say about their favourite swimming books?"
I enjoy Taormina's Swim Speed Secrets (but I hate the title).
The Science Of Swimming Faster (Riewald) is epic for geeks like me.
Swimming Studies (Shapton) is a wonderful compendium of swimming memories and experiences.
Thoughts?
"Three Year Swimming Club"
"Gold in the water"
"Swimming to Antarctica"
"The Crossing"
I loved that book! My mom gave me an autographed copy she bought from Lynne at a book signing in Los Alamitos, California, Lynne's home town. We are from Long Beach, which is the adjacent city, and I used to watch Lynne train at the Alamitos Bay Penninsula, when I was growing up. She would run in the deep soft sand, and then swim along the shoreline. The lifeguards were all in awe of her! I thought she was amazing, too, and she inspired me to swim. I hated freestyle when I was a kid, though, and I would swim breaststroke along the shoreline. Sure enough, I grew up to be a breaststroker, and freestyle is my worst of the four strokes!
The swimming book I always recommend to new Masters swimmers is Mastering Swimming, by Jim Montgomery and Mo Chambers.
A fun read is Swim, Why We Love the Water, by Lynn Sherr. (As a side note, she contacted me here on the Forums and asked permission to use my "You know you're hooked on swimming..." thread. In return, she sent me an autographed copy of the book, and we had a memorable e-mail exchange.)
Yet another Gold in the Water fan.
I have 3 Year Swim Club. My daugther read it, but I haven't, yet.
Also have Mastering Swimming. Thumbed through it, but haven't really put any time reading it.
***Looks up Mastering Swimming***
I enjoy the Swim Smooth book also, even though it is very triathlete-centric.
(Thanks folks.I'll research all of these titles.)
Swimming Fastest by Maglischo
Wow. This doorstop might be a great one for me. Third edition, 2003 eh? I wonder if there will be a 4th.
Edit: The damn thing costs an arm and a leg. I need those for swimming.
On the training side ... www.amazon.ca/.../073607242X
On technique, I'm a huge fan of Terry Laughlin's works - www.totalimmersion.net/.../. But, full disclosure as I'm biased because Terry was my age group swimming coach and got me to my first Junior Nationals when I was 13, so I trust his technical mind. I also re-discovered his approach around 2008 as a Masters swimmer and re-worked my freestyle, swimming my fastest of my masters career into my late 40s (e.g., Masters' best 1000/1650 and 1500 when I was 48-49).
