Customer Reviews

Open Water Swimming: A Complete Guide for Distance Swimmers and Triathletes

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I started Open Water Swimming two years and quickly came across this book in my hunt for more information. At the time I found this to be helpful in some areas, given the almost complete lack of information on Open Water.
It may be more helpful to Tri-athletes but in retrospect with a few years long distance swimming behind me, but I think that it is somewhat shallow, no pun intended.
At the time of reading, I was starting swimming and training by myself (and still am mostly),and many of my questions were about how to move up from 1/2 mile to mile pool swims to longer sea distances. I did not find this particularly useful in this regard and I thought it's section on training was too brief, with too much emphasis on stroke.
For the specifics of Open Water swimming it meeds more emphasis on training plans & recovery, acclimatisation and habituation, goal-setting, and more specific information on some of the features of river and open sea, (jellies, flora & fauna, currents, surface topography, weather, course setting, etc).

This is an excellent book. I am considering training for the English channel swim and found this book excellent as a source of vital information with regards open water swimming. Not only is the book from a world expert but there is great passion in the writing as well as superb technical aspects of swimming in open water. I especially liked the fact that it dealt with very long swims unlike many of the commercially available open water books out there that are catering for triatholon swimming distances as obviously that is where the money is with regards to publishing and selling.It is what most long distace swimmers train for. There are very few books on long distance open water swimming longer than a triatholon swim so this book for me is a must. As for the reviewer that felt she wrote the book like a drill coach, if you want to swim something like the english channel any approach unlike the one in this book will equal failure.

An excellent book either for beginner or advanced open water swimmers. This book cover all itens since preparation, trainning up to the day of competition. The book presents trainning for short and long distance for your better preparation. Easy and funny to read, this book still describes real stories (some of them motivational) of long distance competitions, like English Channel.

I'm a swimming coach and bought this book to get some fresh ideas for my squad. It's a fitness and triathlon squad of mixed ages and goals.

I found some useful information in this book, such as mental stratgies and preparation for swimming in open water events. Penny Lee Dean certainly knows her stuff, however I think that the buyer should think carefully before purchasing this book for the following reasons:

1: It's very dated. This book was first published in 1996 - making it 15 years old at the time of this review. It has had no updates since then and it shows. most of the examples used are of swims undertaken in the late 80s and early 90s by swimmers unknown outside the US (and possibly little known within the US), and she advocates the use of a vcr to record your stroke, which would be a good idea if you could still buy them. The computer generated diagrams analysing a swimmers stroke from 1993 are old style vector diagrams that, to be honest, are so primitive it's a joke.

2: The book uses imperial measurements for distances- everything is in miles and yards. A large portion of the world uses kilometres and metres. I have no sense of miles and yards, and none of the charts involving distance translate well to metric. The olympics use metric, FINA uses metric, so why all the miles and yards?

3: It's very US centred (see the point above), with little to no concessions made for the rest of the world. Don't get me wrong - I'm not bagging the US here. Dean suggests going to the US Olympic Training Centre to use their flume to analyse your stroke. Even if I were based in the US, the cost and effort involved would make it extremely unlikely I would ever do this. And using the 'coach scope' (p83) is completely out of the question, even if it was still manufactured (see point 1). So, some of the suggestions are somewhat useless.

I'm not saying don't buy this book. I would recommend buying a second hand copy or borrowing it instead though.

If you are considering becoming an open water swimmer, this book is a must. Not only are there excellent descriptions of what you must do to dedicate yourself, but it also aids in the decisions to make to continue this process. Open water swimming is difficult, and this book gives you all the reasons not to do it. Should you still choose to make the attempt, this book is a wonderful guide, although somewhat dated as to equipmanet.

Penny Lee Dean writes like a coach, which she is. You can almost see her writing chapter titles and outlines with a magic marker on a board, with a group of swimmers taking notes. The book is as clear as water, and about as interesting. If you really want to swim long open-water swims, like the English Channel or across some big lake, this is clearly the book for you. She has excellent training tips, instructions for dealing with obstacles and injuries, and motivational ideas. But if you aren't quite so serious about long, excruciating, time-consuming swims, if swimming is only an important and not pivotal part of your life, you will find the book slow going, which, by the way, is how I swim.

Good book for beginners and newbies. More of a technical manual, than a story.

I used the book to prepare for my first open water 2,000 metre race off the beach last year. Its well written, interesting, full of tips and easy to read - it certainly helped me become a better and more confident open water swimming and would recommend it to all us amateur open water enthusiasts!

very good book, written by one of the most famous open water swimmers. she explains everything.
i would like a more detailed chapter about nutrition.
I am very satisfied.

This book really helped me and my open water swim friends with our races. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in open water swimming.