Workouts, in a Binder: for Swimmers, Triathletes, And Coaches Paperback – November 18, 2005

I would like to give a rating without stars, just to let you know what's inside in an unbiassed manner. However, I like the book well enough to give it 4 stars. On a good day I'd give it 5 stars, on a bad day 3.What's good:I don't have to think much about what I'm going to do for a workout. The workouts come in two lengths. My time allows me to do the shorter ones. This book is just workouts. There's no fluffy stuff.The book is plastic. Plastic is waterproof, not moldproof or wetproof. I put the book in a baggie on the pool deck. Somewhere, somehow the baggie had a hole. The book got a little wet. I toweled the pages dry. Not ideal, but it would have been ruined if it were paper. I need to invest in some better baggies.What isn't so good for me but might be good for you:The book is divided into five parts: distance free, mid-distance free, sprint free, stroke, and IM. Mid-distance free is by far the thickest section, sprint free the thinnest, and I didn't count pages but the other three sections seem to be somewhat evenly sized. This makes the book 3/5 freestyle. I know most people swim mostly free, but I like other strokes and would prefer to have a larger variety of stroke workouts, especially since stroke workouts for butterfly are generally just a bit different than stroke workouts for the other strokes. People who love freestyle have the lovely option of purchasing Nick Hansen's other publication for triathletes, which focuses solely on freestyle. So I would love if Mr. Nick Hansen would publish me a book that's, say, 3/5 NOT freestyle, with a small focus on a few butterfly specific workouts for people who don't have the stamina to do an entire stroke workout of butterfly but would like to, someday...

I've been swimming my whole life, competitively when I was younger and now for fun and general fitness. Sometimes I'll race open water, every now and then I'll join in a Masters meet and see how much slower I am then I was in highschool.I bought this for workout inspiration, which is gives. But it does not give ready to use workouts, for my purposes. The workouts are long, average about 4k. When I swim before work I usually only have time for 2.5-3k. I find many of these to be uninspired and somewhat boring, but there are also many that I like. I pull this book out, read the main set, figure out which bits of it I want to use and what I want to change, and I create my workout on the go with this as a starting point. Its a nice starting point, but I had optimistically hoped for more than that. After decades of doing a sport, no author is going to construct workouts the way you specifically like them.My main issue is the length, these are too long for an adult who is swimming for fitness and has a specific amount of time to workout each day. Again, you can edit them to make them fit the time you have.Sidenote, they don't have sendoffs. Obviously, I should have guessed this, how would they have sendoffs that could work for everyone? The workouts give rest intervals, and indicate what your effort should be. I use that to figure out what my sendoff should be.

First, the waterproof pages, small size, and spiral design make this so easy to throw in your swim bag and bring to the edge of the pool. Second, the workouts are tough! 4,000 yards each. We usually swim 1500 yards so we do an abbreviated version of the workouts - having instructions to guide you is 10x more motivating than just swimming aimlessly for an hour. Third, they have various workout "plans" you can follow - 13 and 26 week training programs, each workout also has an A and B version. Lots of variety to keep the staring at the black line on the pool floor interesting. The price can't be beat. Planning to gift this as Christmas presents for my other swimmer friends. 10/10 would recommend!

My husband and I are in love with this book. We found this book thanks to a swimming coach who recommended this to us. It has been the best purchase we made and it helped us incredibly during our swimming workouts. While we may not always be able to finish all the main set, these workouts are highly customizable and perfect for those who have little time in the pool. In addition, the great variety allows to work on technique, speed, and endurance without making the workout boring. Try it for yourself!

This book is my cure for swimming boredom. Plus, I work so much harder with my book "coach" than I do on my own. The workout instructions are confusing as others have said, but guess what, there are pages in the introduction which explain everything. So it's really not that tough if you just take some time to read or reference the instructions. Workouts too long? I modified it myself to fit in the time I had allowed for swimming. I'm six swims into this summer, and I just started using the book after spending the first five swims getting my swimming arms back. My 2,000 yard nonstop freestyle time right now is 28 minutes and I'll be using the book all summer, so I can update on my progress at the end of July. Hoping to get that time down significantly..!

I love this book, I trained for countless triathlons with this book. It is water proof and the spiral bounding makes it easy to display your workout pool side. It takes a little bit to remember what some of the acronyms mean, if that is too difficult for you to take 5 seconds to look it up you won't like this book. I am not exactly sure what happened to my first one, I probably just misplaced it. I have spring, summer, fall, winter bags of cycling, swimming, running, race, triathlon, etc. gear. It could be anywhere. I checked the pools I train at when I realized I did not have positive possession of it, not to be found when I went back. If I found this book at the pool and I was not feeling like doing the right thing, I may or may not slip it in my bag, it is that good. People ask me about it all the time, I always recommend it and kindly guide them to amazon to purchase it.

The book is waterproof and the workouts give you a good idea of training plans but the book is only small and if your unable to see without glasses on for reading then your not going to see it. Book is about a6 size

This book is perfect if you, like me, swim regularly but not as part of a coached session and want some variety to break up the monotony of going up and down the pool. I don't always stick strictly to the sessions in the book but they are great inspiration for trying some new types of workouts. The fact that the book is waterproof is fantastic, so you can keep it on the side of the pool and it doesn't matter if it gets wet. I would highly recommend this book and have bought it as a gift for others who also love it.

Some great workouts for all levels of swimmers. Comes in a handy waterproof spiral bound book, so that it can be written on in marker, and used at the side of the pool by coaches and swimmers. Would recommend.

Great

This book seems pretty good and I think the variety is good. But just a warning -- I've not seen a workout under 3km and the "easier" B sets are not THAT much less than the A set!So unless you're a hardcore swimmer or have loads of time to spare, be prepared to skip some parts of the sets or some of the reps.