Best swimming books according to redditors
We found 16 Reddit comments discussing the best swimming books. We ranked the 7 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 16 Reddit comments discussing the best swimming books. We ranked the 7 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Nope, there's real science supporting this. Recovery runs don't deplete muscle glycogen stores since they're so low-intensity, but they do increase blood flow throughout the body--which ends up allowing for beneficial contents like vitamins, minerals, and glucose to be more quickly delivered to muscles, which means that muscle tissue can be more easily repaired. This is well documented in Swimming Fastest by Coach Ernest Maglischo.
I'd be more wary of high-intensity cardio since it can take over a day for your glycogen stores to complete replenish.
Inb4 Deco for Divers is one of the most commonly suggested books to read. Mark breaks it down really well for us non-chemistry students whilst still being a very technical book. It will also leave you with lots of avenues for research.
I recall a printed description of the approach in the following book, but my copy is in storage. I believe you leave the regular trail lower in the canyon to reach it. You guys, for real, don't tell anyone about this book, though:
https://www.amazon.com/Day-Trips-Splash-Swimming-Southwest/dp/0965768627
I don't have the instructor notes to hand so, from memory this is for two reasons:
If you want a better explanation of the theory behind this, I highly recommend reading Deco for Divers by Mark Powell
[Swimming Fastest by Ernie Maglischo](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0736031804?ie=UTF8&keywords=swimming%20fastest&qid=1377524504&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1
) is the definitive stroke & swimming book. It's now over 10 years old, and that's the 3rd edition. There are a few things in it that are out of date but it's 1000 pages of meaty technical goodness.
The basic class structure I use for swimming lessons is:
Warm-up - gets the wiggles out, sets up consitency
Review - go over things they know, still correct technique
Introduce - introduce new skills that build on the known skills (this varies on age group, skill level and difficulty of what is being taught)
Review - go over new skill, combine it with previous skills
Cooldown - something fun, game, etc to let them know class is over / reward them for being awesome earlier
Grab this and this, though both only have basic diving material in them, it'll be an excellent place to start with non-divers that you can build off.
I'm a couple months in practicing on my own. I had lessons as a kid, but hadn't really swum more than a few meters (other than lounging around) in twenty years.
I've gone from around 90 seconds to go 50m to about 55s, swimming twice a week for half an hour. I feel like I'm making slow but steady progress, but I also am reading quite a bit from the library. The drill structure in Total Immersion sounds goofy, but is very rewarding so far. It does assume some swimming experience. And Swimming Fastest is huge but very detailed on proper form.
I never really felt like Youtube videos could explain what and why things were happening. I need really, really slow-motion that I can watch for multiple swimmers to see what they do differently, and the same. That doesn't seem to exist at high rez.
I would recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Springboard-Platform-Diving-Jeffrey-Huber/dp/1450424457
Its very well written and goes through progressions on learning new dives. I would also recommend some sort of recording system so you can view what you are doing and see where you need to make changes and if you are in fact correcting things that may be wrong.
I'd reccomend reading http://www.amazon.co.uk/Deco-Divers-Decompression-Theory-Physiology/dp/1905492073/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345549204&sr=8-1 if you want the basis to make a well reasoned choice about this. As a doctor I'm used to rolling my eyes at "layman" explanations of medical problems, but this book does a very good job of it.
7 hours should be a good enough margin in most cases imo. It all depends on your nitrogen loading. Going by the multi-compartment way of approaching decompression problems the logical reasoning would be that the faster compartments are the ones where you will have the most effect of exercise. Increased bloodflow to muscles will help clear them more rapidly of N2 (thus increasing the nitrogen pressure in your blood) but shouldn't have much effect on the fatty tissues.
On the other hand headaches and itching skin are signs that you have light DCS symptoms..
(disclaimer, not a certified diving doctor)
Swimming has been found through decades of research to have a very high degree of specificity, meaning that swimming is the best way to work on swimming, and cross-training with other activities will be of very limited benefit. If you're interested, the definitive book about training for swimming is Swimming Fastest.
Here are some books that might help:
Also, these aren't specifically swimming-focused, but they may mention swimming in them:
I would strongly suggest the book Deco for Divers.
Buhlmann (ZHL-16C is the current iteration, I think?) is a standard deco algorithm, all the compartment values for different gasses and M-values are published. Most computers also implement gradient factors on top of Buhlmann. Here is a primer.
VPM is another algorithm, but it's on shaky ground when applied to mixed gas diving. RGBM is an extension of VPM (Suunto computers use RGBM).
This is probably also something you should read.
If you want to support different gas mixes, you need to be able to let the user specify the % of O2, N2, and He in each mix (I don't know if the M-values for H2 are readily available, but almost no one uses H2 outside of deep commercial diving and medicine), and you will have to treat each gas separately in the decompression model.
And please don't set the limit of the number of gas mixes to something stupid, like two (looking at you, Oceanic).
This is a really good question and something I have long pondered myself. Now that it has been mentioned, I think it is a good question to ask DAN - perhaps something they can address in Alert Diver.
My theory is that it probably can increase risk of DCS, particularly when you are loading your tissues with longer halftimes heavily and when you crack your joints on ascent. My reasoning behind this is as follows (and I will try to make this a short as possible).
There is the assumption now in many decompression models (of note, the VPM and its variants & the RGBM) that there are micro gas nuclei in our tissues at all times, even before we go diving. Bubble decompression models aim to limit the growth of these bubbles by letting them offgas at depth before they reach a critical volume, past which they will only grow causing symptomatic DCI and/or alternatively limiting the number of bubbles in our tissues that reach a certain volume. If you're interested in the exact parameters of these models, I would suggest a book by Mark Powell called Deco for Divers. Anyway, I digress.
My theory is that since something like synovial fluid is likely a very poorly perfused tissue receiving little blood flow to its adjacent tissues, so it is going to take a long time for any decent amount of N2 (or He) to accrue in it. That said, if synovial fluid was relatively saturated with diving gases and then you went and popped that joint, a bubble would mechanically form from the cavitation of the popping and with that bubble being surrounded by relatively saturated fluid, there may be little in the way of a gradient for it to transition back into the dissolved state. Effectively, it would be a bubble beyond the critical volume which would only continue to grow - particularly if it occurs during ascent.
Now keep in mind that this is entirely hypothesis and I have no empirical evidence to back it up. I have cracked knuckles and toes and elbows many times while diving. In fact, I have also observed that my joints tend to have a faster "recycle-rate" while diving than they do on the surface (i.e. the time between when I can crack them again is decreased when diving.) This makes sense - the pressure should help redissolve that CO2 bubble more quickly. Nonetheless, I have never been bent (knock on wood) with or without joint cracking.
I would imagine that cracking your joints, if it does in anyway increase your chances of DCS, probably only does so very slightly, and that chance is probably only increased in the unlikely circumstances that you are diving with mixes containing fast-diffusing gases like He and/or bringing your body to full or near-full saturation (saturation diving).
That said, I have no medical degree and this is purely conjecture. But that is my theory... definitely something I have thought about a few times before. Good question!
Wow, I guess it's not your fault. Education about dive computers needs to be much better. That said, the tables aren't to be fully trusted either.
The algorithms designed (from which the tables derive) are based on testing, mostly with young fit divers. That got the values by sedning people down and seeing when they reported symptoms. Oh - he got really sick, guess we shouldn't send them down that long. That's how they original (in a few methods) got the m-value - basically, top end of super-saturation various tissues in your body can take. Even then, in testing they found that 80% of DCS incidents occurred with a super-staturation less than 80% of the M-Value - meaning these were very conservative dives but still exhibited symptoms. Even without symptoms silent bubbles (i.e. compressed gas without symptoms) are always present. That line is said to be "a solid line through a fuzzy grey area"
By design the value you get from your computer is how long most people can dive without signs of DCS - that's not 100% and depending on the day it could be you. It's just probability.
Also, one thing to consider, with technical computers we can tune the algorithm conservativeness with limiting super-saturation of the tissues and requiring more off-gassing. When I take that computer diving in warm water I usually scale back the conservation a little since I'm not working that hard - even on this less conservative setting it's usually about 10-20% shorter NDL for me that what you'll find on a rec computer. I dive enough that I scale back my risk even when doing easier dives. I've seen several times, mostly minor, with by-the-book dives leading to symptoms.
Some sources:
http://dspace.rubicon-foundation.org/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/10152/VDC_2012_10.pdf?sequence=1
http://wrobell.it-zone.org/decotengu/_downloads/mvalues.pdf
Highly recommend:
http://www.amazon.com/Deco-Divers-Decompression-Theory-Physiology/dp/1905492073
Something for periodization: The Science of Winning.
Complete Conditioning for Swimming is good, too. (Already mentioned.)
You may also want to read about Total Immersion, if your previous experience on swimming has rested on "yardage" and "more yardage". Just ignore the marketing BS and think about how you'd apply the ideas about balance in water.