Swim Smooth: The Complete Coaching System for Swimmers and Triathletes

I am a recreational swimmer who tried to relearn to swim better back in 1998 from Terry Laughlin's book. I have never been on a swim team to get good coaching advice. I have recently looked at a few new and old how-to-swim books. The newer advice is quite different from the older books which encouraged habits that can easily lead to shoulder injuries. 1) A new book "Swim Smooth" has the most modern advice of all, along with a fine web site swimsmooth.com with a super free app you can download and watch from any angle and at very slow speed (esp from underneath to see the difference from the old S-shape recommended arm movement for the crawl). Looking through this book a few days ago already has led to a major revision of my freestyle. You can get the essential info from this fun book by just looking at the numerous pictures and reading the captions. My self-taught freestyle stroke has several major flaws, eg. I should not angle my hand sideways on entry which can injure the shoulder and I should not cross the center line on arm extension or pushback (some old books show the arm crossing horizontally under the body) which loses propulsion and leads to being off balance. The entry angle should be at a steep approx 45 degree angle and the hand should tip down for the catch right after full extension (instead of gliding more). And forget about a sideways scull and S-shape arm movement (update: I have added back a partial S movement which seems to flow better with increased speeds if you use fins, plus Olympic swimmers do that too). Anyway, the book "Swim Smooth" and web site (with the downloaded MrSmooth app) is my top choice for a relearn-to-swim-freestyle book for amateurs who have no coach. 2) Next in line is the excellent second edition of "Fitness Swimming", pages 1-69, page 86, and pages 119-120 (the rest is workout schedules). This book has by far the best compact explanation of the theory and guidelines for the modern injury-free freestyle . It finally explained to me exactly how to accomplish the 2-beat kick as well as the unfathomable (from other books) 6-beat kick. 3) Then there's the other modern swim book that I re-learned to swim from in 1998. Too bad in that book (or even his latest one) there is no good description of the arc the hand travels (ie. S-shape or not) or fundamental principles like the hand must always be inside the elbow distance (otherwise .. injury) and the similar dangers of angling the hand on entry, or of the merits of a steeper hand entry (but see his DVD below). Terry Laughlin's books (latest best all-stroke intro is called "Extraordinary Swimming for every body") have been adopted widely and I still would recommend this book as one of the several must-have's for someone still learning to swim better. If I was teaching someone to swim from ground zero, I would use the exercises to lead up to the crawl in that book's freestyle chapter (which are easier to see/appreciate in the bigger format "Total Immersion Pool Primer", basically drills in balance and body rotation) or in Terry's DVD "Perpetual Motion Freestyle in 10 Lessons", which teaches how to swim by progressive enhancement of fundamental balance and propulsion skills. The graduated drills are clearly demonstrated and the progression to developing the complete stroke and 2-beat flick kick is logical. 4) "Learn to Swim in a Weekend" is a super compact (90 pages), all-picture guide to the major strokes plus turning and diving, about 8 easy to look at pages per stroke type. This is a fun book to look through and the pictures are superb in showing the essentials of each stroke. So those are the 4 most essential how-to-swim or how-to-relearn-to-swim-better books I've discovered. Then there's the very old swimming book "Swimming: Steps to Success" which has some bad crawl advice (which was considered good advice in the 1960's), but includes a few non-major strokes such as the sidestroke and the Double Trudgen which I'll learn sometime to amaze folks - I mean, who really knows that stroke nowadays other than ocean lifeguards! The third edition of this book has not changed from the very old first edition, so do not expect modern swimming advice. History: the first-ever "modern" swim book was "Complete Book of Swimming" by James Counsilman (1979) which authors since have liberally copied text from. This was "the" modern theory and how to swim book until the 1990's and has held up remarkably well, plus it's fun to see pictures of Mark Spitz's swim strokes.

This is a very good book that I would recommend to anyone interested in improving their freestyle stroke (and of course, speed and sense of comfort in the water). I have learned to swim later on in life, starting with fairly high difficulty around age 29. For those of you who have been there, it started with that feeling of being completely out of breath after a single length and resting a minute before doing the next length...and the continuous feeling/fear of being out of breath. Since then, I have put a lot of effort into becoming a better swimmer -- hard work in the pool, reading various books, and talking to more experienced swimmers about drills, techniques, and swim plans. But I still have struggled with my comfort level in the water. For example: the "sinking" feeling, always seemingly struggling to take in enough oxygen, and having a very hard time of incorporating flip turns. Most of the books I have read and people I have talked to aren't quite familiar perhaps on this part of the struggle to become a better swimmer -- from the viewpoint of someone who doesn't yet have an innate sense of comfort in the water. The SwimSmooth book has been a Godsend when it comes to this part of improving as a swimmer. The authors seem to be keenly aware and in tune with swimmers of all skill levels and experience...the explanations and drills are very well written and well-illustrated. For example, I identify with the "Arnie" swimmer archetype and based on this identification have been able to follow specific drills and techniques to improve my comfort in the water. It's also printed on very high quality, gloss paper - I definitely recommend it for anyone looking to improve their freestyle swimming, from beginner through intermediate skill levels.

The good things about this book are 1) Very attractive design with many colour photos and illustrations 2) It explains why swimming can be so difficult and explains that there are different types of swimmer that have a certain challenges. 3) I can't imagine another swimming book being better than this. 4) IT does have a link to a website that has videos and some are free to view....but this book combined with the many videos on youtube form various uploaders is very helpful. Worth the money I'd say I thought I'd give it 4 stars as this is the only swim book I have ever read...maybe there is better but.....this is all that I need...so far....

Great book to review and work on the swim details. Should have bought it months ago! Very clear step-by-step descriptions with good graphics/pictures

Congratulations to the authors of this excellent book. The book is very well organized going through steps that truly help in understanding our mistakes. I can give you my experience: I am a 50 years old guy that since five years ago is doing some master competition. My swimming back ground is poor as I started swimming in competitions when I was 16 years old and ended when I was 23. My very best times in 100 m crawl were always very close to 1 minute. It was clearly a plateau. When I restarted swimming I could not do better than 1min 9 seconds but with the age coming it started being difficult to maintain that time and last July I was falling to 1 min 13. When training series (10x100 leaving each 2 minutes) I could not do better than 1 min 45 sec each 100m. Even if in the first two series I could do 1 min 40 sec it was not being possible to sustain. Some weeks ago I bought the book and I realized that I was doing an incredible high number of mistakes. I jumped to my first season train and I decided to concentrate in few things that I learnt I was doing wrong. It was fantastic: a serie of 10 x 100 m done with all 100 m in less than 1 min 30! And it was incredible easy. I just corrected the breathing and avoid over gliding as I was doing. But the best part is that I could identify many aspects more that I need to correct. Again congratulations to the authors of this excellent book. Truly recommended.

Over the years I have read quite a few swim books and this is definitely in the top echelon.Both the material and the format are excellent. The book is top quality, table size, printed on chromo paper and with excellent color graphics explaining and illustrating the text. The book is organized into three parts - technique, training and open water. There are also appendices on drills and work out plans and references to the Swim Smooth web site. I do not intend to summarize the contents of the book but I would like to point out two major themes: a. the Swim Smooth method has certain fundamentals but is not a one-size-fits-all system. It modifies these fundamentals to different swim types that they identify. b. Although never mentioned by name, the TI method is totally disputed and discredited by the authors. The Swim Smooth method is the antithesis of TI. It should be pointed out that this book deals exclusively with freestyle and with an emphasis on open water swimming. This is reflected in the fact that the underwater dolphin (a major freestyle pool skill) is not covered. Having said that, I truly feel that Swim Smooth will become one of those iconic swim books and is an essential addition to any swim library. Highly recommended.

This book is very easy to understand, well written and on the cutting edge of swimming. I have read many books on the subject of swimming and most try to get you to swim in one particular way. This is the first book that I have seen that encourages you to swim in the fashion that works best for you depending on a few factors such as body type, the particular distance that you are doing, and whether you are swimming in a pool or open water. I could not put it down and I think that it will be a best seller among swimmers, triathletes and their coaches. It is a must read! But the best part was that I was able to get it instantly for $9.99 on my kindle instead of pre-ordering for $19.37. One thing that should be edited is that on the kindle edition it is hard to read some of the captions on one or two pages.

The good: This is an excellent book, particularly for those of us who want to get better in open water. The take the middle ground in the debate about stroke rate. Although they don't specifically mention Total Immersion, they do criticize the approach of increasing stroke length just to increase stroke length. There is a lot of other good stuff in this book. I would have given it a five had it not been for the stuff below. The not so good: 1) They clearly endorse multiple Finis products without saying if they get money from Finis for their endorsement. Then when I look at the ratings of these products on Amazon, several got poor reviews. 2) They get you to go on their website and then you get a lot of adds to subscribe to their "Swim guru" and various swim sessions offered by Swim Smooth coaches around the world. Overall, I think this is an excellent book. I would have appreciated it if they mentioned that they were getting money from companies to recommend the company's products, if they are getting endorsement money.

Pour changer un commentaire en Français. Cet ouvrage est vraiment excellent : photos de qualités, texte clair. Les causes et conséquences des défauts sont bien expliqués. Il faut franchir la barrière de la langue(Anglais débutant s'abstenir ...) mais je n'ai pas trouvé équivallent en Français. La prise en compte de la morphologie du nageur est intéressante. Les idées pré-concues sont écartées et commentées : pas d'utilisation de la planche , utilisation des palmes, Il est adapté à tous les niveaux.

Un libro completo tanto para principiantes como para avanzados que quieren mejorar o pulir su nado de crawl, así como prevenir lesiones por mala técnica. Excelentes fotografías ilustrativas.

This book covers pretty much anything related to triathlon and open water swimming. The descriptions about correct technique as well as individual styles (swim types) is very in-depth and my go-to resource when I am unsure about an aspect of my stroke. The training is also rather clear, with them giving a clear framework so that you can create your own swim training. The approach is rather technical, so self-coached athletes might be better of using a simple system like Joe Friel's PDLC because it is very hard to focus on so many aspects while training.

Teniendo en cuenta que tengo un inglés muy malo, tengo que decir que se lee muy bien. Este libro lo encuentro imprescindible para cualquier nadador o triatleta que quiera mejorar de verdad y aprender un montón de técnicas y ejercicios para poder nadar más rápido y mejor. Gracias a este libro me he dado cuenta de muchos errores que cometía tanto de entrenamiento como de técnica, estoy aplicando estos criterios en mi club de triatlon, incluso nos grabamos para ver la técnica, también realizamos test y entrenamientos que te enseñan. Un gran libro con mayúsculas. Si quieres mejorar nadando o eres entrenador de natación este es tu libro. Este libro también se nutre de su página web, de material de natación, vídeos, etc, que no son imprescindibles pero pueden ser de más ayuda si cabe (por ejemplo me he comprado en Amazon las palas Finis que recomiendan y son una pasada). Ahora soy un swimSmooth adicto!

Finora il manuale migliore sullo stile libero che abbia mai avuto tra le mani. Il libro riduce, per semplicità, sei diverse tipologie di nuotatori e diversi (Arnie, Bambino, kicktastic, overglider, swinger e smooth) elencando i difetti comuni che ritrova nelle diverse tipologie di nuotata. Con una ripresa video e una scorsa ai propri tempi, sarà abbastanza semplice ricondursi alla tipologia di nuotatore indicate dal libro, dove l'autore fornisce diversi consigli per migliorarsi per ogni tipologia di nuotatore. Non vi sono miriadi di esercizi di tecnica, ma pochi e mirati, e inoltre, indica come potere capire se la propria tecnica è migliorata. Lo consiglio a tutti i nuotatori che desiderano migliorarsi.