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Swim Speed Secrets: Master the Freestyle Technique Used by the World's Fastest Swimmers, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

Swim Speed Secrets: Master the Freestyle Technique Used by the World's Fastest Swimmers, 2nd Edition Cover Image
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Description


The world’s top swimmers know the secrets to swimming faster. Now you can too! In Swim Speed Secrets, 4-time Olympian, gold medalist, and triathlon world champion Sheila Taormina is your guide to unlocking speed.

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. Her smart, clear coaching will help any swimmer or triathlete learn the fastest way to swim.

From Johnny Weissmuller to Michael Phelps, the world’s fastest swimmers share two common elements: high stroke rate and a high-elbow underwater pull. Many swimmers and triathletes neglect the underwater pull, distracted by stroke count or perfecting less critical details like body position, streamlining, and roll. Swim Speed Secrets focuses on producing power—the most crucial element of swimming—to help swimmers and triathletes overhaul their swim stroke and find the speed that’s been eluding them.

With a commonsense approach that comes from decades of practice and years of hands-on coaching experience, Taormina shows swimmers how to transition to faster swimming. Swim Speed Secrets includes:
  • The best drills to cultivate a more sensitive feel for the water
  • Dryland and strength building exercises to develop arm position and upper body musculature
  • Crisp photos of Olympic swimmers and variations in their high-elbow underwater pull
  • Clear descriptions of the key moments of the underwater pull
  • Tips that helped her perform at a world-class level for two decades

New to this 2nd edition:
  • Guidance on stroke path, stroke timing, hand speed change, and overwater recovery.
  • Visual proof of the curvilinear stroke path using Taormina’s patent-pending grid analysis tool.
  • Further instruction on stroke rate, and a “gears” system to guide workouts.
  • New drills to cultivate technique and feel for the water, and dryland exercises to develop arm position and upper-body musculature.

Sheila Taormina’s Swim Speed Secrets brings the focus back where it belongs: to a powerful underwater stroke. With this approach, triathletes and swimmers can stop swimming for survival and break through to new levels of speed and confidence in the water.

About the Author


Sheila Taormina is a 4-time Olympian, gold medalist, triathlon world champion, and swimming coach. She 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 the unswimmerlike height of just 5' 2", Taormina refined her exceptional freestyle swim technique to 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.

Praise For…


"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

"Freestyle gone funky on you? Stuck in a rut where you can't seem to get faster? Swim Speed Secrets could be the cure for the freestyle blues. Master swimmers and coaches at every level can learn something from this book" ¦Both the book and [the Swim Speed Workouts] training program are outstanding." 
USMS Swimmer magazine

"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

"Sheila Taormina's ideas on swimming have influenced me and my swim coaching more than anyone else. Her knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm are unmatched. Her book is the best resource out there to help all different types of athletes improve their swim." 
Siri Lindley, ITU Triathlon World Champion and coach to triathlon world champions and Olympic medalists

"Sheila's book Swim Speed Secrets is the best swim manual--PERIOD!" 
Ashley Whitney, Olympic gold medalist

"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 University of Georgia swim team

"[Swim Speed Secrets] is a ripper! [It was] great to get a no-b.s. perspective on swimming from a champion." 
Chris McCormack, 2-time Ironman ® 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.com

"Sheila possesses a great depth of knowledge and passion about swimming that she has often shared with me and many other athletes. Her new book will be a very useful tool to anyone who wants to improve their performance in the water." 
Leanda Cave, ITU Triathlon World Champion and ITU Long-Distance Triathlon World Champion

"As a lifelong coach, the four-time Olympian shares what she's learned with clarity and authority, explaining all of the small details that go into mastering freestyle." 
LAVA magazine

Product Details
ISBN: 9781937715816
ISBN-10: 1937715817
Publisher: VeloPress
Publication Date: April 22nd, 2018
Pages: 200
Language: English
Series: Swim Speed