I don't because I am too embarrassed to practice. Simple as that. When I get an opportunity to practice it without feeling like every person in the world is watching and laughing, I will practice until I can do it.

Go read the strange denizens of the pool thread. Guaranteed that when you are practicing flip turns, you are not the one people are watching and laughing at.

From the man himself. Thank you...that is all.

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It's easy to make excuses, but excuses don't make champions.

With a good teacher, you could learn to flip turn in the time it takes to read this thread

In the context that swimming with a masters group or in a pool that follows those rules (circle swimming) - flip turning makes sense in that it will generally keep people sorted into the correct lanes. From the comments though - this mostly seems to benefit the other experienced swimmers, in that the non-flippy creates issues at the wall.

I am a bit baffled by this overall. This forum is full of excellent swimmers who willingly offer great, free advice to learning swimmers on how to improve form between the walls. For many people, it is possible to swim in a pool without a pool clock or a master's coach - without having to do anything more complex than sharing a lane side-by-side.

Currently I swim 3-4 days per week in an LA Fitness pool. I tried flip turning a handful of times, and I almost gave myself a concussion. Following advice from this forum I have moved well away from BOP without the self-coached risks of learning flip turns (banging heads or feet). I don't see flip turning as a critical learning skill.

I do it because I decided that I wanted to do it.
Now that I do it I don't even think about it - It's just how I swim.

My journey to get here was:

Step 1: Spend about 30 minutes in the pool just doing flip turns.
Step 2: Try to flip turn when I am swimming on my own (not with the club).
The biggest hurdle here was missing that extra breath I took when I did open turns - this was a big deal.
Step 3: No longer need that extra breath. Start to flip turn at club training sessions.

Took about 6 months to be truly comfortable with it.

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What do you know about swimming? ;) But you do get a rest in OW if you want to. I believe you can hold onto a canoe as long as you don't advance your position. I could be wrong about that though.

"I am a bit baffled by this overall. This forum is full of excellent swimmers who willingly offer great, free advice to learning swimmers on how to improve form between the walls. For many people, it is possible to swim in a pool without a pool clock or a master's coach - without having to do anything more complex than sharing a lane side-by-side. "

The great free advice is continuing in this thread. Just looking at it empirically, all the good swimmers use flip turns. Honestly, that ought to be all you need to know. (Queue someone referencing their uncle johnny's cousin's brother who is fast but doesn't do flip turns)

Swimming fast is not just about how hard you can pull water. Swim next to the 9 year old girls on a swim team and you'll quickly figure this out. You also need to have feel for the water. Doing flip turns might not directly help people's open water swim speed, but if you can't do one or do one well, it's an indication that you are missing some fairly vital skills. Perhaps it is breath control, positional awareness, whatever. Something is missing from your swim skills/comfort in water bag if you can't do a flip turn, because as has been pointed out it takes about 30 minutes to learn the skill.

Maybe you'll get slower for a while when you first switch to flipping. Think of it as a short term investment that will pay dividends for a lifetime.

I'm quoting you, but this isn't really aimed at you specifically, just some of the anti-flip folks on here.

You don't have to learn them. No one is forcing you to do a flip turn, just like no one is forcing you to swim front crawl on the swim. If you want to do the swim sidestroke or doggy paddle, go nuts. Train it enough and you'll probably develop a pretty good doggy paddle.

If you're a healthy active 20 something to 50 something, there is absolutely no reason you can't learn flipturns other than some medical condition (eg inner ear problems), and most of those medical conditions can be overcome if you really want to. Above a certain age (I don't know what that age might be, it will vary by individual) then it will become very difficult, but still not impossible.

Every single person on our masters team does them, down to the slowest person in the slowest lane. We have people who are almost 80 on the team, some of whom learned to do them in their 60's when they started swimming for the first time. They have arthritic hips, all kinds of issues, and they can do these things no problem. They may not be particularly fast or pretty, but they are still faster than doing open turns, and they get them done.

Whats your excuse?

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Why would I grab onto the leaders kayak? That would be cocky.

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2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

I can understand not wanting to look silly, its just human nature. Find some time when the pool is not busy - outside squad times - and just fool around in water than you can stand up in. Just swim a few strokes in, a few out and focus on the turns. You'll have to think it through but its honestly not that hard to get a functional turn going. And as Zenmaster says, there are always plenty of other strange dudes to be seen around the pool.

In reality, if you are taking the time to learn them, most swimmers are not gonna laugh at you. In fact, if you ask one of the better swimmers in your pool to watch your turns and give you a few pointers, most will be very happy to do it.

We only laugh at each other when a good swimmer completely misses a turn. I did that repeatedly on a backstroke set the other day, until I realized that the pool staff had put up 2 sets of backstroke flags, one at 10m and another at 5m from the wall. I'd turn onto my stomach after 3 strokes from the 10m flag and wonder where the hell the wall was. At least that was better than when they forgot to put the backstroke flags back in for lane swim.....

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Technically, I do both. On drill sets, I still open turn because I get one more rep and drill sets aren't timed. Otherwise, its all flip turns.

I used to swim 5500y days with open turns. I tried to learn a couple times, but didn't ever really have a compelling reason ... that is until my pool started a masters program. I was always put in the fast lane and I had to learn out of courtesy to the other swimmers. Sure it sucked to learn, but I got it now. Its a habit.

Since you asked.

Started swimming seriously in October of 2013, as BOP swimmer. Last weekend I was 5th out of the water in my wave, with 34 out of 400 for the event.

My excuse? Learning to flip turn is wasting time better spent.

This. Really don't even need a good teacher!

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"Sweep the leg...Do you have a problem with that?" - John Kreese

Congratulations on the improvement, that's really good.

How is it wasting time? You have to turn anyway, so why not learn to turn faster so you can get more time in swimming?

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Ditto, except that my flip turn is really sloppy and I haven't bothered trying to clean it up since I won't be using it in a race.

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Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
Which is probably why I was registering 59.67mi as I rolled into T2.

3 kids, with requisite kid's sports. Working wife with two jobs, and my job requires me to drive 300 miles two to three times a week. Training time is VERY limited (hence my never going longer than Olympic). I have tried a few times to learn and ended up getting sick - took on too much water and banged my head a few times. Plus my heels.

I have a "fakie" flip turn that I developed to address some of the traditional open-turn criticisms. I just flop over backwards at the wall, so I end up facing the ceiling under water. I then push off and rotate around. I never breathe at the wall.

I have swum next to flippers, if I'm on the ball with the above I can keep up.

You are half way there then!

Try this ... next time you swim, on one of the easier sets, do one good flip turn. Next time, two, and just keep scaling up from there.... It worked for me.

Learning to flip trun does not require a major investment of time. Even if you had a dedicated time in your swim practice to practice JUST turns, its five more minutes.

You could do it if you wanted to.

Thank you for the compliment; I forgot my manners in my first response.

I have swum next to flippers, if I'm on the ball with the above I can keep up.

Not to be cocky, but if you were swimming next to me I guarantee you I would gain at least a body length on every turn. If I really work the turn, probably more. And I'm using less energy to turn, which means more energy for swimming. And I'm an old fart, my turns aren't nearly as good as they were when I was in college.

That said, it seems like you've developed a system that works for you, and you've minimized the rest on the wall as much as possible. What you are describing is a competition-style breast or fly turn.

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Perhaps. But you are a trained competition swimmer. And no, I don't think you're being cocky.

I just think that focusing on the flip turn is damaging to getting people to enter the sport. I hear a LOT of people tell me that the thing that keeps them away from tri's is the swim. It was for me as well, for the first 4 years I was relay-only (bike). It's hard enough to convince these people to get in the pool, much less to add the choking/head banging flip turn to the equation. While I agree that if you want to train in a Masters type-environment you SHOULD learn it to avoid making yourself a nuisance, you don't NEED to know how to do it to get good results in open water. There are so many other swim skills that can directly relate to improvement when starting from zero.

I just think that focusing on the flip turn is damaging to getting people to enter the sport. I hear a LOT of people tell me that the thing that keeps them away from tri's is the swim.

No doubt. The swim is really intimidating for a lot of people, and IMO it should be. If you aren't confident that you can do the swim distance, the last thing you should be doing is going out in the open ocean for 750 to 3800 metres.

That said, for the rank beginner it is not a priority. I don't think anyone has said that it should be. Comfort in the water comes first, then basic stroke mechanics, then doing all the little things that improve your training experience.

IMO, you are at the point where learning the turn will help your swimming. You need to try it more than a couple of times, there are some excellent youtube videos on learning to turn and a good progression to use to enable decent turns.

I think this works well:

1) flip in the middle of the pool, full somersault so you end up swimming in the same direction as you started. make sure your feet are coming straight over the top at every stage of the progression. If you can make a slapping sound on the water with the soles of your feet, that's a good indication that you are going straight over.
2) flip in the middle of the pool, half somersault so you are going in the opposite direction
3) gradually move closer to the wall. Swim slowly into the wall and make note of where you are when your feet start to graze it. At this stage you are just flipping, no pushoff
4) incorporate the pushoff.
5) start building speed into the wall.

You don't need to spend a lot of time on it. Hell, the somersaults you can do while you are doing warmup or warmdown, so there's no extra time commitment.

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

That's how long it took me as well. After about 3 yrs in triathlon I decided to learn how to do flip turns...at age 52. All the ex-collegiate guys where I swim tried to help me but I wasn't getting it. Then I found a 5 step series on youtube that begins with a noodle. I would do my workout then practice. Once I had some semblance of a turn down, I would start my work-outs with flip turns but quickly go to open turns when I was doing hard sets. It took a half-year to master them and although I am still a MOP swimmer, I at least look like a real swimmer to a novice. I figure if I could master flip turns in my 50s then anyone can, but you have to want it.

Ouch! We should have added that you might want to do the first few in the deep end. If you still have a headache in 10 days, you have a bigger issue than your first triathlon.