What’s the best swim technique book out there that covers all four strokes?
As an aside – our masters group got a new coach, and after the first practice he identified me as the one triathlete in the group because of my poor form!
If you’re looking for the absolutely everything swim book geared toward coaches and more advanced swimmers that also doubles as a doorstop and pasta-maker, then the gold standard is Swimming Fastest by Ernest W. Maglischo.
you get fishtwitch brownie points for caring about all the strokes, and I’ll second FLAJill’s suggestion.
(but the best way you’ll learn swim technique is by swimming, swimming, and more swimming)
Have fun!
Thanks for the suggestion. Does it have lots of pictures and drills?
"A primary feature in the book is a thorough and insightful technique analyses of the four primary strokes: freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly. Accompanying the text are more than 500 photographs and illustrations, including photos of world-class swimmers demonstrating picture-perfect form. Supporting the technical instruction is a complete explanation of the physiological basis for the most effective training methods, including detailed sample workouts and training programs for each event. "
Thanks for the suggestion. Does it have lots of pictures and drills?
If you are looking for pictures and drills, while Swimming Fastest does have both, it is more of a scientific tome than an instructional book for the newbie swimmer. If “Swimming 301” was offered in a college sports physiology department, this would be the text book.
IMHO, its the kind of book you’d pick up if you were a newer swim coach and needed to get some info on how to get your team to move up at the state meet or, you were a decent swimmer with a bit of stroke background who wanted to really know what was going on.
If you are the the kind of guy who gets the urge to learn a bit about black holes so you pick up a few Steven Hawking books to dig into, you’ll love it. If on the other hand, you head to Wikipedia or About.com, it might be a little much for you.
For someone in your situation, I would suggest trying to find a video or set of videos. Unfortunatlely, I can’t recommend a particular one but there are a bunch available. I do know that when I was learning about swimming as a high schooler, I found films as an easier way to “get it.” I did go on to do some book study but I was pretty advanced by that point. I doubt I would have gotten much out of STARTING with a book like Swimming Fastest.
If “Swimming 301” was offered in a college sports physiology department, this would be the text book.
I’m taking a “swimming skills” class this fall. It’s required for my major 
actually I’ve got a bunch of cool classes this semester.
You should check out Robert Guzman’s book here. It’s a swimming drill book for all four of the strokes. I was looking for drills to help me learn how to do butterfly as well as improve my back and breast stroke. I always could find tons of drills and technique workouts for freestyle on the web, but never anything for the other strokes, which is frustrating.
Yep, that’s the best.
Championship Swim Training by Bill Sweetenham. I can’t recommend it strongly enough.
Covers all four strokes with pictures, drill progressions, workouts and even a season plan all very useful and actionable.
Actually the original swimming made easy from total immersion is the BEST way I know of to learn how to swim 50 yards of butterfly with reasonable form, it’s how I learned. They have updated it and made a new four stroke book out of it. Swimming skills for every body or something like that. I actually prefer the butterfly progression from the original swimming made easy book though.
Like all the other Total Immersion stuff it is not the be all and end all of stroke technique but does get you able to swim a given distance in the given stroke.
Swimming Fastest is definitely the most comprehensive book on swim skills. But trying to learn how to swim from it is a bit like trying to learn to build a deck with a textbook on finite structural analysis. The information is in there but it may presuppose a lot more than you know now.
From your comments, I gather Championship Swim Training is not as technical a book as Fastest Swimming?
Yes, that’s right. More real world info that a swimmer can use.