The Cold Water Handbook

The Cold Water Handbook

£19.95
£19.95
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The Cold Water Handbook
  • The Cold Water Handbook
  • The Cold Water Handbook
  • The Cold Water Handbook
  • The Cold Water Handbook
  • The Cold Water Handbook
The Cold Water Handbook

The Cold Water Handbook

£19.95
£19.95
Paperback eBook

An honest, practical guide to cold-water swimming for complete beginners and experienced winter swimmers alike.

Drawing on current research, responses from nearly 1,000 swimmers and fourteen years of coaching experience, Alice Goodridge explains what happens to your body and mind in cold water, where the evidence is strong and where popular claims have run ahead of the science.

Understand what you feel, manage the risks and make better decisions in and around the water.

Most people who get into cold water aren’t trying to prove anything. They’re looking for something.

When swimmers are asked how cold water makes them feel, the word that comes back most often is not refreshed or invigorated. It is alive.

But cold-water advice can be vague, contradictory or built around pushing limits. The Cold Water Handbook offers something different: an honest, practical guide to understanding what happens to your body and mind in cold water, managing the risks and swimming with greater confidence.

Drawing on current research, responses from nearly 1,000 swimmers and fourteen years of coaching experience, Alice Goodridge brings together physiology, safety guidance and the lived experience of the people who actually swim.

Whether you are considering your first cold dip or have been swimming through winters for years, this book will help you understand your own experience more clearly.

Inside, you’ll discover:

  • What cold shock feels like and how to manage the first few minutes
  • How cooling, hypothermia and afterdrop affect the body
  • What changes as you adapt to cold water, and what does not
  • What the evidence really says about mood, health and wellbeing
  • Important considerations for women, including periods, pregnancy and menopause
  • Practical information about cold-related conditions, including Raynaud’s phenomenon, cold urticaria and SIPE
  • How to prepare, choose useful kit, enter the water, swim safely and warm up well afterwards
  • A practical guide to swimming at different water temperatures
  • Where scientific evidence is strong, uncertain or frequently overstated

Cold water doesn’t need conquering. It needs understanding.

Format: A5 paperback
Length: 164 pages
RRP: £19.95
ISBN: 978-1-0654738-0-0


CONTENTS
1. Introduction: Why Cold Water Matters


Part I: The Experience
2. How Cold Water Feels
3. What It Changes
4. What It Adds Up To


Part II: What’s Actually Happening
5. What Cold Water Does
6. The First Minutes: Cold Shock and Breathing
7. Cooling, Hypothermia, and Afterdrop
8. Adapting to Cold
9. Women and Cold Water
10. Cold-Water Conditions


Part III: Swimming Well
11. Before You Get In
12. Kit: What Actually Makes a Difference
13. Getting Into the Water 1
14. In the Water
15. After the Water

Part IV: Meaning and Context

16. Stories From the Water

17. Respecting the Water

Water Temperature: A Practical Guide
For Those Who Want More
Acknowledgements
About the Author

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What customers have said

  • “An excellent and extremely useful guide, pitched just right in terms of length and tone, balancing science, safety messaging and emotional heft.”

    RachelScottish Highlands

  • “Comprehensive and easy to read. Unlike some books that feel too technical or aimed at an elite, this resonated with the ordinary people we meet every day on our swims.”

    JohnTasmania, Australia

  • “The after-swim section is like a friend, gently steering me to do things better. I might have been cold-water swimming for a while, but I respond well to understanding the reasons why.”

    GillWorcester

  • “I think I have read almost everything written for the public about cold-water swimming, and you have nailed it. Anyone from the curious to the serious will find this a readable, accessible, sensible and elegantly written handbook. I only wish that every person aspiring to swim in cold water could read it first.”

    PenelopeMaine, USA

  • “Easy to read, so well written and very clearly set out. It is a valuable reminder of the things we can begin to take for granted as regular swimmers.”

    TanyaHigh Peak

  • “Brilliant, really useful and a powerful reminder that everyone responds differently to cold-water immersion. It makes the science and safety advice feel human and relatable.”

    KathNorth East Scotland