Fitness Swimming by Emmett Hines (Second Edition)

This book on swimming is a great resource for a swimmer with a little lap swimming experience that needs more direction, or a lap swimmer with a lot of swimming experience that wants to try some new ideas (of course, that assumes that the ideas in the book are new to that swimmer). It focuses on freestyle technique and fitness swim training from developing skills through swimming fast.

The book Fitness Swimming by Emmett Hines (2nd Edition) is a good addition to a swimmer's library. It is intended as a guide for workouts and for freestyle skill development. It does not try to cover too much, sticking to just those topics (no help on the other strokes).

The book presents swimming technique and workout ideas that could be either new or good reminders for all levels of swimmers. The book is divided into four logical parts.

1. Preparing to Swim
2. Swimming the Right Way
3. Swimming Workouts
4. Training Over the Long Haul

Part I, Preparing to Swim, covers the benefits of swimming, gear needs, and how to figure out swimming fitness. The last part on swimming fitness describes a "tried and true" method used by many, many swimmers and coaches, the T20 or T30, a 20 or 30 minute swim used to determine a base pace for workouts.

Part II, Swimming the Right Way, explains the importance of swimming posture, and how to integrate drills to develop and maintain that posture into workouts. Part II also covers key elements of freestyle stroke technique and stroke timing.

Part III, Swimming Workouts, explains how to do workouts and has 60 workouts for swimmers to copy and take with them to the swimming pool. It begins with an explanation of how fast or how hard to swim - intensity - and then works through 6 levels of workouts: Basic Skills; Skill Development; Full-Stroke Swimming; Threshold Workouts; Speed Workouts; and finally High-Intensity Workouts.

Part IV, Training Over the Long Haul, describes how to vary a training program over the course of a season and year and offers 16 sample training programs. The final chapter gives great advice on how to stick with your swim training for life.

The book's appendices consist of tracking forms, charts to use with the T20 or T30 tests, a glossary of key focus points, and a glossary of acronyms and abbreviations.