OPEN WATER SURVIVAL MANUAL: An Expert's Survival Guide for Triathletes and Open Water Swimmers

It is a complete guide for any open water swimmer. It also include some personal experiences of the author, wich are not a few. Great book.

....geht auf allgemeine wie sehr spezielle Fragestellungen ein, super recherchiert und - wie man weiß- alles selbst ausprobiert und umgesetzt.

This is a great resource for anyone who wants to improve their skills in the water. From the basics of setting goals, to planning for your personal best in a big event or swim. Being a marathon runner who has looked for training advice from the best, I appreciate the author's practical tips about swimming and swimming events - from learning about the environment you will be venturing into to how to maximize your comfort and get into the zone during your event. The tips from SEAL training show that the best excel for a reason, there are no shortcuts to success and achieving a desired goal, it takes planning, pratice and hard work. Cox recommends getting help from a coach, again, to learn from someone who is above your skill level and have them help you move forward. This manual is a wonderful resource for swimmers and triathletes of all levels!

The title of this review says it all. But before I go any further I want to go on record as saying that I have nothing but complete respect and admiration for everything Lynne Cox has achieved in the open water swimming world. She has been there and done that with numerous world records, and pioneering swims. I loved her book, Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long Distance Swimmer, was thrilled to find CBS video footage of her Antarctic swim and inspired by her TED talk on YouTube. So it was with great excitement I ordered her latest book, Open Water Swimming Manual. An Expert’s Survival Guide for Triathletes and Open Water Swimmers. The first thing that struck me as odd was the 5” x 9” proportions of the book. Not a big deal I know but I did wonder why the publishers choose the long narrow format. I think the title of the book is a little misleading, as the book is geared less towards triathletes and more towards long distance open water swimmers, swimming three miles or more. Despite a section about lakes and rivers the book focuses entirely on long distance ocean swimming. Which narrows itself to a very small group of swimmers with unlimited time and resources. The book is split into 23 chapters covering everything from how to choose the right swimsuit and equipment to skin lubrication, marine wildlife and how to choose a support crew. Ms. Cox uses her personal experiences along with advice from other experienced swimmers and coaches and the Navy SEALS. One of the things that annoyed me was the over use of the Navy SEALS as experts. If I wanted to find out how the SEALS trained I would buy a book about the Navy SEALS! Also I don’t think a full chapter needed to be dedicated to “Finding an Open Water Swimming Coach and Group” Surely most people will just do an internet search for what is available to them locally. Having said that there is for sure a lot of useful information in the book but I think the writing and presentation lacked in certain areas. I had hoped the book would have had more instruction on open water swimming technique and feel that this would have improved the book considerably and appealed more to the average swimmer. More diagrams or illustrations to demonstrate the points being made would also have been helpful. The biggest gripe I have with the book though is not necessarily the fault of Ms. Cox. The amount of typographical errors was ridiculous. I don’t remember reading any other book having so many, if any at all. Now I don’t profess to being the greatest with grammar or spelling and I’m sure many of my blog posts are littered with mistakes but I think the publishers, Vintage Books, should have produced a better finished article. So can the average swimmer get something from this book? Yes I guess so and reading some of the reviews lots of people love it. But in the end after reading the book all I could summon up was Meh!

thie book is for all the open water swimmers who will never get the chance to swim in some of the places Lynne has swum.it is laden with great stories and her own experiences in open water.this book is also a fantastic manual for open water swimming with a huge selection of detailed infomation on all you need to know in open water. Even if you just want a good read and are interested in swimming this is the book