Swimming is one of the most beneficial and refreshing ways to exercise. However, many swimmers miss the greatest benefits of the sport. These swimmers train by swimming continuously for an allotted time or for a specified distance. By organizing and structuring their time in the pool, swimmers can greatly increase the benefits and enjoyment they derive from their workouts.

In this stunning and inspiring guide, Kate Rew, founder of the Outdoor Swimming Society, takes you on a wild journey across Britain, braving the elements to experience first-hand some of the country's most awe-inspiring swim spots, from tidal pools in the Outer Hebrides to the white-sand beaches of the Isles of Scilly. Waterfalls, natural jacuzzis, sea caves, meandering rivers - every swim is described in loving detail, taking in not only the gleeful humour of each mini-adventure and the breathtaking beauty of the surroundings, but also practical information about how to find these remote spots. Featuring evocative photography from Dominick Tyler, this is a must-have book for serious swimmers and seaside paddlers alike, and is perfect for the outdoors enthusiast in your life.

A celebration of outdoor swimming - looking at the history, design and social aspect of pools. Few experiences can beat diving into a pool in the fresh air, swimming with blue skies above you. Whether it's a dip into a busy and bustling city pool on a sweltering summer day, or taking the plunge in icy waters, the lido provides a place of peace in a frenetic world. The book begins with a history of outdoor pools - their grand beginnings after the buttoned-up Victorian era, their falling popularity in the 20th century, and the newfound appreciation for the outdoor pool, or lido, and outdoor swimming in the 21st century. Journalist and architectural historian Christopher Beanland picks the very best of the outdoor pools around the world, including the Icebergs Pool on Bondi Beach, Australia; the 137m seawater pool in Vancouver, Canada; Siza's concrete sea pools in Porto, Portugal; the restored art deco pool in Saltdean, UK, and the pool at the Zollverein Coal Mines in Essen, Germany. The book also features lost lidos and the fascinating history behind the architecture of the pools, along with essays on swimming pools in art, and the importance of pools in Australia. In addition there are interviews with pool users around the globe about why they swim. The book is illustrated throughout with beautiful colour photography, as well as archive photography and advertising.

This book puts an end to the drudgery of merely counting laps by showing you how to create your own individual fitness program--and have fun doing it!

Learn how to:

• Determine your own fitness level
• Choose an appropriate training program and build upon that program with a variety of innovative workouts
• Use a timing clock and interval training to increase your speed and endurance
• Use various training equipment, such as kick boards, hand paddles, and swimming fins to strengthen stroke technique
• Improve your cardiovascular fitness, muscle tone, and flexibility

Included for quick reference are tips for streamlining strokes, checklists for proper stroke execution, and a helpful glossary of training terms as well as a section on the joys and challenges of open water swimming.

In The 100 Greatest Swimmers in History, John Lohn profiles some of the biggest names the sport has ever seen, from Mark Spitz and Tracy Caulkins to Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps. Each swimmer is ranked based on achievements such as Olympic medals, world and European championships, and world records. Lohn provides insight into how these swimmers became the best in their sport by detailing their accomplishments, finest performances, records, and noteworthy biographical information. This new, updated edition contains results from the two most recent World Championships and the 2016 Olympic Games, and while many athletes further cemented their top-100 status, some newcomers also made their way into the rankings-including Katie Ledecky, who launched herself high up the list with her dominating performances. The 100 Greatest Swimmers in History also features a new section highlighting the top coaches in the sport and includes multiple appendixes that serve as wonderful references for information such as world and Olympic medal counts of the profiled swimmers. Fans, coaches, athletes, and sport historians alike will find this an indispensable resource.

'Pleasure beckons at the water's edge.' With these words, Eric Chaline celebrates the physicality and sensuality of swimming - attributes that might have contributed to the evolution of the human species. Chaline's comprehensive account surveys swimming from prehistory to the present day. He decodes the earliest human myths to reconstruct swimming's prehistory and history; he explains its role in religious rituals, trade and manufacture, warfare and medicine, and chronicles its transformation into the leisure activity and competitive sport that together have made it the most commonly practiced physical pastime in the developed world. Swimming is now a cultural marker that stands for eroticism, leisure, endurance, adventure, exploration and excellence, and latterly, like other disciplines that use repetitive movements to discipline the body and still the mind, it is held by wild swimmers to be a lane to spiritual awakening - one stroke at a time. There is no single story of human swimming, but many currents that merge, diverge and remerge towards a future in which our survival may depend on our ability to adapt to life in an aquatic world.

This brilliant new guide for Londoners reveals hidden rivers, wooded lakes and Art Deco lidos, all within an about an hour of the capital on public transport, perfect for those who love to swim under the open sky. 150 locations cover the best of the Thames, Lea and Medway valleys and the area's numerous swimming lakes. The guide also showcases the best lidos and hotel pools, plus locations with organised swims. > discover secret islands on the Thames with river beaches, bucolic meanders and a bridge to jump from at Desborough Island > find the most beautiful of London's bohemian Art Deco lidos, including its best-kept secret in the heart of Soho > swim in a turquoise blue lagoon, like something from the Caribbean, at St Andrew's lake > spend the day sipping cocktails and eating sushi by the pool at a four-star Tudor hotel - Great Fosters

Undressed Toronto looks at the life of the swimming hole and considers how Toronto turned boys skinny dipping into comforting anti-modernist folk figures. By digging into the vibrant social life of these spaces, Barbour challenges narratives that pollution and industrialization in the nineteenth century destroyed the relationship between Torontonians and their rivers and waterfront. Instead, we find that these areas were co-opted and transformed into recreation spaces: often with the acceptance of indulgent city officials.While we take the beach for granted today, it was a novel form of public space in the nineteenth century and Torontonians had to decide how it would work in their city. To create a public beach, bathing needed to be transformed from the predominantly nude male privilege that it had been in the mid-nineteenth century into an activity that women and men could participate in together. That transformation required negotiating and establishing rules for how people would dress and behave when they bathed and setting aside or creating distinct environments for bathing. Undressed Toronto challenges assumptions about class, the urban environment, and the presentation of the naked body. It explores anxieties about modernity and masculinity and the weight of nostalgia in public perceptions and municipal regulation of public bathing in five Toronto environments that showcase distinct moments in the transition from vernacular bathing to the public beach: the city's central waterfront, Toronto Island, the Don River, the Humber River, and Sunnyside Beach on Toronto's western shoreline.