In Swim Speed Secrets, 4-time Olympian, gold medallist, and triathlon world champion Sheila Taormina reveals the swim technique used by the world's fastest swimmers. Over the course of 4 Olympic Games and throughout her career as a world champion triathlete, Taormina refined her exceptional technique as a student of the sport, studying the world's best swimmers using underwater photographs and video analysis. From Johnny Weissmuller to Michael Phelps, the world's fastest swimmers share one common element: a high-elbow underwater pull. Many swimmers and triathletes neglect the pull, distracted by stroke count or perfecting less critical details like body position, streamlining, and roll. Swim Speed Secrets focuses on the pull the most crucial element of swimming to help triathletes and swimmers overhaul their swim stroke and find the speed that's been eluding them. With a commonsense approach that comes from decades of practice and 15 years of hands-on coaching experience, Taormina explains why the high-elbow underwater pull is the most important part of swimming and how swimmers can transition to this vital technique. She offers the best drills to cultivate a sensitive feel for the water. Her dryland and strength building exercises develop the arm positioning and upper body musculature required to swim faster. She describes what it feels like when swimmers have learned the secret and offers tips that helped her perform at a world-class level for two decades. Sheila Taormina's Swim Speed Secrets brings the focus back where it belongs to a powerful underwater stroke. With this book, triathletes and swimmers can stop swimming for survival and break through to new levels of speed and confidence in the water.
Swim Speed Secrets
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"The concept of 'holding' water and generating propulsion is fundamental to swimming performance, and Sheila's book clearly unlocks the secrets of this through words and vivid underwater photos. It is what every top swimmer trains and searches for each day at practice, and it is what allowed me to win Olympic medals as a teenager and into my 40s." -- Dara Torres, 12-time Olympic medalist
"In her book, Sheila Taormina gives a great understanding of the art of high performance swimming. With her help, you can stop swimming for survival and start swimming like a pro." -- Laura Bennett, 2010 ITU #1-ranked swimmer, four-time ITU World Triathlon Championship medalist, Olympian, and two-time U.S. triathlon champion
"A ripper! Great to get a no-b.s. perspective on swimming from a champion." -- Chris McCormack, 2-time Ironman(R) World Champion
"Taormina's "Swim Speed Secrets" is a compendium and reference, a tool box no triathlon swimmer can afford to ignore... Taormina has seen thousands of open-water and competitive swimmers of all levels...The insights and lessons provided in "Swim""Speed Secrets" are the distillation of those decades of experience, thousands of hours of coaching and training and thousands of competitions in only 174 pages...This book is a more effective training aid than paddles, a kickboard and even a swimming pool. "Swim Speed Secrets" is your most important swim tool." -- TriSports
"Sheila's book "Swim Speed Secrets" is the best swim manual--PERIOD!" -- Ashley Whitney, Olympic Gold Medalist
"Sheila Taormina may be the greatest athlete in the modern Olympic era. She's the only person I know who has made four Olympic teams in three different sports." -- Jim Richardson, Head Coach of the University of Michigan women's swim team
"Sheila T. is just 5' 2" but she swims like she is 6' 2." We still use her as a model for our swimmers today on how to swim the strokes." -- Jack Bauerle, Team USA Olympic Swim Coach and Head Coach of the Unive
About the Author
Sheila Taormina is one of a handful of athletes who have competed in four Olympic games and the only woman in the world to have competed in three distinctly different sports swimming, triathlon, and modern pentathlon. At just 5ft 2in tall, Taormina's exceptional freestyle swim technique helped her win a gold medal in the 1996 Olympics and the 2004 ITU triathlon world championship. For 15 years, Taormina has coached elite and age-group swimmers and triathletes to develop the strong underwater pull that propelled her to such athletic success in her racing career. Taormina conducts dozens of swim clinics around the world each year.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Jen
Format:Paperback
This book was easy to read, straight forward and focussed on the the one area of the swim technique that can give the greatest improvements - the high elbow pull. Everything that Sheila discusses in the book makes sense, and once you've read it, you'll wonder why you were concerntrating on any other area of your technique. I have already started putting her advise into practise and seen my times/efficiency in the pool improve. A no-nonsense, easy to digest book that will help you speed up in the pool.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Montjuic
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
It's all about getting the best from your freestyle. I found it well argued, very clear and very sensible. Looking for reasons why my own swimming was crap, despite lots of effort, I think I found them here. It shows you exactly what to devote your efforts to and demonstrates over and over where the greatest payback lies. Includes drills and strength training ideas to get you moving in the right direction. Lots of swimming articles give you a number of things to focus on and leave you unsure as to the relative importance of each. This book is a lot more single-minded and much the better for it. I like it a lot.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.8 out of 5 stars
46 reviews
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Narrow focus, but I like it a lot
9 May 2012
By dnk512
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
The author focuses mainly on the high elbow catch. What others spend a paragraph in a book or 60 seconds in a video, this author covers in great detail in an entire book. This reminds me of the total immersion (TI) books that use an entire book to focus on a narrow aspect of a stroke. Though it seems that one should be able to cover the high elbow catch with fewer pages, much like the TI books this book really drives the point home for the reader.
I like this book a lot. Perhaps I am reading it at the right time for my training. Though everyone will benefit from it, I would suspect some readers will benefit more depending on current swimming level. Total beginners may benefit more from the TI books. This book does not try to teach you how to start swimming. It assumes you can do some laps. However, this book will not hurt you if you are a beginner and very soon it will become indispensable for you, too.
The authors style of writing is very friendly. You will feel like you had a good coaching session after reading it. The pictures are very inviting. The pages are printed nicely. Very good job. On the presentation this book is the *best* swimming book out there.
Where I think the book could improve is where I enjoyed the book even more. As the title suggests, the book is about 'secretS' (many). And indeed, there are many secrets/topics in it, but they are all revealed in a less organized way during high elbow catch discussions. I greatly enjoyed the other tips. I just wish the 'secrets' were presented in a structured way. Perhaps the author feels that they are of lower importance. But... swimming is a sport of millimeters.
Kudos to the author for this book. I like it a lot
I like this book a lot. Perhaps I am reading it at the right time for my training. Though everyone will benefit from it, I would suspect some readers will benefit more depending on current swimming level. Total beginners may benefit more from the TI books. This book does not try to teach you how to start swimming. It assumes you can do some laps. However, this book will not hurt you if you are a beginner and very soon it will become indispensable for you, too.
The authors style of writing is very friendly. You will feel like you had a good coaching session after reading it. The pictures are very inviting. The pages are printed nicely. Very good job. On the presentation this book is the *best* swimming book out there.
Where I think the book could improve is where I enjoyed the book even more. As the title suggests, the book is about 'secretS' (many). And indeed, there are many secrets/topics in it, but they are all revealed in a less organized way during high elbow catch discussions. I greatly enjoyed the other tips. I just wish the 'secrets' were presented in a structured way. Perhaps the author feels that they are of lower importance. But... swimming is a sport of millimeters.
Kudos to the author for this book. I like it a lot
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book
18 May 2012
By Bruce P. Douglass
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I am a triathlete (or perhaps a wanna be) and swimming has not been my strength. While I get advice from coachs on movement that is visible outside of the water, I typically see MANY people doing exactly what those coaches are telling me my problem is, yet going MUCH faster than I. Clearly, something else is the problem, something going on under the surface, that's making the difference. This is where Sheila focuses - on the pull. She invokes the 80/20 rule and states that the other stuff - body streaminglining, arm recovery, hand entry - is all the in the 20%. And the best evidence she provides for that is Johnny Weissmuller held all swim records in the 1920s, while swimming holding his head out of the water! His speeds are certainly not up to today's olympic standards but he swims WAY faster than I or 99% of most triathletes (57s / 100m is Pretty Darn Fast). What he did have was a really good pull.
This is a well-thought out book with drills and training approaches. She does take her time making her point in places but this is the best book on the important parts of technique that I've seen. Highly recommended.
This is a well-thought out book with drills and training approaches. She does take her time making her point in places but this is the best book on the important parts of technique that I've seen. Highly recommended.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Improved my times overnight
9 Nov 2012
By Necmiye Eren
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
It sounds gimmicky, but it's true: this book shaved 30 seconds off of my 400 meter time in *one week*, without any additional outside coaching. I am a competitive runner making the transition to triathlon for the past 3 years, and have always struggled particularly with the swim leg of the sport. I have taken swim technique classes, done masters' swim classes, watched Total Immersion videos and read the TI book, but this book for the first time made something "click" with me about the way I have to think about swimming in order to actually move forward with speed.
The book basically is an enormous critique (although she doesn't name it explicitly) of Total Immersion's focus on gliding, reducing drag, reducing strokes, and becoming like a fish. Instead, Sheila focuses exclusively on the CATCH and PULL aspect of the stroke, using photographs and amazing visual images for when you're practicing. IT WORKED. The next day, I went to the pull, visualized a few of the images she has in the book, and voila! Instantly faster. Of course, it will take a lot more work for me to improve on what I gained through the book, but I am just MUCH more comfortabel in the water after reading this.
She gives some exercises and sets to practice which are good, but I look forward to her next book when she goes into more detail about that.
The book basically is an enormous critique (although she doesn't name it explicitly) of Total Immersion's focus on gliding, reducing drag, reducing strokes, and becoming like a fish. Instead, Sheila focuses exclusively on the CATCH and PULL aspect of the stroke, using photographs and amazing visual images for when you're practicing. IT WORKED. The next day, I went to the pull, visualized a few of the images she has in the book, and voila! Instantly faster. Of course, it will take a lot more work for me to improve on what I gained through the book, but I am just MUCH more comfortabel in the water after reading this.
She gives some exercises and sets to practice which are good, but I look forward to her next book when she goes into more detail about that.
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4.8 out of 5 stars
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