In the largely rewritten and well-illustrated
section on Technique, Maglischo describes his latest
beliefs on effective swimming technique. In some
cases, he allows for differing techniques or styles
of swimming, but general favors one method.

Although he generally agrees with the drag-reducing
fundamentals and front-quadrant stroke timing of the
very popular style coached by Bill Boomer, Emmett
Hines and Terry Laughlin and exemplified by the
efficient, long-reaching front crawl styles of Alex
Popov and Ian Thorpe, he offers much criticism of
what he calls "Stretch-Out" swimming, in which he
says that the emphasis is on stretching forward too
long, and swimming a catch-up style, to increase
stroke length rather than speed.

His less-revised section on Training includes
improved illustrations and sample training routines
used by Janet Evans, Susie O'Neill, Brooke Bennett,
Kieren Perkins, Mike Barrowman, Alex Popov, Penny
Heyns, Tom Dolan and Summer Sanders. It includes
the most thorough look at breathing strategies I
have ever read.

His brief Racing section presents numerous splits of
races by the swimmers mentioned above, at various
distances and strokes.

Essentially, Maglischo has vastly improved what was
already the most thorough and highly-regarded book
in the field.

22 of 22 found the following review helpful:

Very advanced book. Not for beginners  Dec 20, 2003

I am a novice swimmer. I can swim breastroke, but poorly and I got this book to improve. Mistake.
This book is very advanced. You can see that it is well documented, researched to a level close to academic style. The book is really concerned with speed, and is directed to coaches and swimmers who are starting to compete.
Although you could potentially take this book without having ever swum before and learn from here, in practice I don't recommend it: there are far too many details and seeing the forest is terribly hard because of the trees.
I found particularly hard to understand the movements from the drawings and pictures. I would expect drawings to show the whole body at different stages, instead you get the arms in one drawing and the legs in another drawing. Each drawing is subdivided in three quadrants: 1) seen from the front 2) seen from the side 3) seen from below. The WHOLE movement is depicted in ONE drawing: the only thing depicted is the path you should be following with the hands (respectively, legs). It is left to you to figure out how to achieve the movement puzzling together the three quadrants and the (very detailed) explanations in the text.
You can then read the section on how put the legs and arms together and you have the whole thing. But it is too hard for a novice, in my opinion.
Being a graduate student myself, I see how such a precise description could be invaluable to athletes, but in the same way as you would not start studing physics from a PhD level text book, you are better off not starting to learn swimming from this book.

51 of 60 found the following review helpful:

Out of date information - I returned the book  Jan 21, 2005
By Alistair Cockburn
I am a master's swimmer, been swimming most of my life. In the last two years I've been relearning swimming techniques for all of the strokes and am very interested in both theory and latest ideas. It was on a friend's recommendation I bought this tome.

I was very disappointed, and just returned the book for a refund.

The lastest research results reviewed are dated 1999 --- this is not acceptable for a book published in 2003. I don't mind that he recycled much of his old material, but to be 4 years out of date on a rapidly moving topic won't work. Again, for a supposedly state-of-the-art book published in 2003, this is far out of date.

His theory section doesn't include the mechanics of Thorpe's and Hackett's front quadrant swimming. I was expecting to see a thorough explanation of why it works. Instead, he says he doesn't think front quadrant with a long glide will work (Thorpe and Hackett indicate he's wrong here), but doesn't include any models for why it would or wouldn't.

The theory sections of the other strokes are very thin. Mostly he shows a picture of a fast swimmer and writes, "You should swim like this." But unlike freestyle, there is no substantive theory backing up why 'this' is supposed to be good.

I was most disturbed by the backstroke, since the patterns of movement he says one 'should' do seem to violate the hydro-physics principles he spent so much time on in the first chapter. Without any theoretical backing, he repeats that one should do like the fast swimmers. I came away from this chapter not understanding at all why fast backstroke swimmers swim with a stroke that has a strong downward component, which he clearly advises against in the first chapter.

There is a little nod to Thorpe and Hacket toward the very end of the book, but it looked to me almost just a gratuitous injection of modern names just before sending to print.

I'm now looking for a 2004/5 up-to-date swimming theory book.

10 of 10 found the following review helpful:

Excellent Pointers for the Competitive Swimmer  Jun 17, 2004

Every little meticulous detail of the stroke adds up to a faster time. Maglischo knows every trick in the book--he WROTE the book--to improving a swimmer's technique. As swimming philosophy changes, Maglischo adapts and is open to the new scientific discoveries that shape the winning techniques of swimmers like Michael Phelps and Ed Moses.

Were you ever taught to swim with your head up? Coaches used to teach swimmers to crank their necks so that the water breaks right over the goggles, on the forehead, because they saw that the fastest swimmers rode very high in the water. Maglischo points out that this is an illusion. The fastest swimmers are going so fast that their heads raise slightly, like a jet ski with its nose out of the water. Instead, you should keep your head in alignment with your spine for more efficiency and less strain on the neck.

This is the kind of ingenius revelation that Maglischo offers in Swimming Fastest.

Note: this is NOT for the beginning swimmer. It is dense, mathematical, and technical. It is not a "how-to" book.

With that in mind, buy Swimming Fastest and expand your understanding of the sport.

6 of 6 found the following review helpful:

EXCELLENT!!!!  Mar 07, 2003
By Nik "cavanaugh84"
This is the third edition of the 1st (1982) "Swimming faster" book. Professor Maglischo wrote again an improved "version" and with this one he occupies the position of the best writer, scientist, coach and instructor in the one volume swimming books ever written. If I were to give a name to this book and to his scientific effort I would call this one a "Landmark" work. This book is indeed advanced but at the same time it can serve the less advanced student of the sport since it can be used even as a one volume encyclopedia of swimming. The dedicated enthusiast and the passionate beginer will also find this an atractive and excellent work. Also this book can be used by non swimming specialists who search for a very good scientific handbook of training. Unfortunately in running books we do not have a similar all in one book. We must also mention that the book offers important help to the problem of drag or lift dominated propulsion and Dr. Maglischo explains his thesis (the one we saw in ASCA periodicals in 1999 and in some of his lectures/interviews).
We can only thank and congratulate Doctor Maglischo for his effort and encourage him to produce more fine work and the next edition.

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