Practice flipping in the middle of the pool: do about 5-7 strokes and on your last pull do a flip so that you end up on your back.
Your last pull is a big one with a kick so that you can get momentum into the turn.
As you are turning, keep your knees shoulder width apart.
Do not focus on moving your legs over. Focus on keeping your knees apart and turning your abdominal area on up so that your knees are sort of by your head. Your legs end up being bent at the knees.
You bend your legs last. If your stroke into the turn is strong enough, that is what drives the turn.
Once you master flipping onto your back, go ahead and try to extend your legs as though you are pushing off the wall.
THE ACTUAL PUSH OFF WILL BE ON YOUR BACK. Do not try to twist or any of that nonsense. Just push your legs out.
Try this at the wall.
When you flip, your legs should not have to extend more than a foot or so to contact the wall.
As you approach the wall you flip as in step one and then extend your legs.
You should be close enough to the wall that you are a little scared that your heels might hit. This is normal until you get used to the timing.
PUSH OFF ONTO YOUR BACK.
The motion should put you in a position so that the flip and push are fluid, not the flip then push that you see a lot of people do. The key to this is practicing step 1. If you can do a good flip, then you can position yourself by the wall so that you can push off immediately when the feet are positioned to do so.
Learn to turn over onto your stomach AFTER you push off.
Do not push and twist.
Push off on your back.
THEN twist onto your stomach with one big stroke.
There is no hurry to turn over as long as you can keep momentum off the wall with some butterfly kicks or a really strong push off.
Competitive swimmers are taught not to breathe for at least 2 strokes after the break out
all breakouts should be beyond the flags.
If you can’t do this, practice it.
I have been a swimmer for way too long to mention here and I still practice flip turn drills. I especially practice the flips in the middle of the pool. I usually do about 100 yards of flipping every 5 strokes or so, just to practice flipping quickly and getting my knees in the right place. It’s easy to become lazy and flip with your legs too extended. You should NEVER flip with your feet together–HUGE no, no.
Flip turns are fun and easy and give you a good legs workout in the pool. They also allow for less breathing which always improves swimming speed (unless you pass out, of course.)
I hope this helps someone. I’m sure I didn’t describe this well enough so please ask some questions and I’ll try to help you out.
Deserves a bump since you put some effort into typing this up.
I just started performing flip turns (if you can call them that) as I recently joined a masters swimming group. I’ve watched vids but your description gives me a step-by-step method.
Probably a result of either holding your breath for too long or not breathing out (blowing bubbles) at all during the process, making that first breath a gulp. Try to exhale some as you go through the flip - I usually wind up releasing some air during the flip itself. I’ve been doing them for years, so I’m not sure if this is what actually helps, but don’t stress too much.
Like he said - practice it, it gets easier. Try to stay relaxed and it will get easier to hold your breath longer.
Lance, I’ve been told that part about not breathing off the wall also but is that just a training thing? I have noticed that in the highest levels of competition, at the longer distances everyone is now breathing on the first stroke. Also, they breath every 2 arm strokes now instead of every 3. It just makes sense in an aerobic performance that you need to maximize your oxygen intake.
And breaking out after the flags doesn’t apply to sprints does it? You need to break out at precisely that point in which your streamline speed has come down to your swim pace, which for a 25 second 50m swimmer is pretty much immediately.
Initiate the flipping process with one arm (think catch - only your head is following your arm). I use the other arm (the one that would be recovering) to push water up towards my head (propulsion on the flip) or just tuck it towards my body. As you push off the wall, your arms should be streamlined - my hand placement is what flips me from my back to my stomach, not a stroke or any twisting. Tuck your ears between your elbows and glide. As you lose momentum from the push off the wall, start your first stroke.
I was commenting on the fact that the tutorial presented didn’t even mention arms, which IMHO are critical to achieving a good flip turn, as you mention.
You’re surely not seeing them breathe on the first stroke - as you pull that first arm off the streamline…but unless sprinting I think it’s acceptable to breathe within the first 2 or 3…I teach my swimmers to go at least 2, gives them a chance to get the rhythym going & keeps more momentum vs. the panicky dear-god-give-me-air-screw-swimming death gasp that you see. Keeps a little of the wall momentum going.
Gotcha…Arms always do come in handy while swimming…
I was thinking the same thing…which led to the reply…
Too used to anticipating dumb questions from clients today…
And breaking out after the flags doesn’t apply to sprints does it? You need to break out at precisely that point in which your streamline speed has come down to your swim pace, which for a 25 second 50m swimmer is pretty much immediately.
The idea for sprints these days seems to be to get decidedly past the flags before the first arm stroke- streamlined fly kick is actually faster than full stroke free and you can take advantage of that speed for a little bit before the oxygen debt hits you.
In all seriousness, the OP is definitely a great description of how to do flip turns. And like everyone else said…practice, practice, practice. One thing I have my Master’s swimmers do is to try flip turns during the practice as often as possible. I have no problem with them doing open turns, but I tell them NOT to take a breath during the open turn. The idea is to get used to that “I need air” senesation when doing flip turns.
You’re surely not seeing them breathe on the first stroke - as you pull that first arm off the streamline…but unless sprinting I think it’s acceptable to breathe within the first 2 or 3…I teach my swimmers to go at least 2, gives them a chance to get the rhythym going & keeps more momentum vs. the panicky dear-god-give-me-air-screw-swimming death gasp that you see. Keeps a little of the wall momentum going.
My $.02
Swimming Fastest by Ernest W. Maglischo
From the chapter: Starts, Turns and Finishes pgs291-292
“Swimmings should take the first stroke toward the surface with the arm opposite their breathing sides in sprint races. By doing so, they can complete that stroke and half of the next before they take a breath. This will make it easier to maintain race velocity as they surface and will reduce the tendency for some to delay in attaining race stroke rythm as they breathe immediately after surfacing. I do not recommend that swimmers in middle distance and distance races use this technique, however, because of its potentially fatiquing effect in those races. Swimmings in middle distance and distance races are advised to pull the body through the surface with the arm on their breathing sides. Considering also that they will not have taken a since before they started the turn, approximately 3-5 sec earlier (Thayer and Hay 1984), it may be wiser for these swimmers to take a breath immediately upon surfacing instead of delaying the first inhalation for an additional armstroke. Doing so should reduce discomfort and provide an extra inhalation on each pool length.”
I also am pretty certain that underwater video I’ve seen of Grant Hackett swimming the 1500 shows him breathing on every 2nd stroke and on the pullout after each turn.
One bad thing that a lot of people new to flip turns tend to do is that they try to do too much with their arms. What should happen is that you whip your arms around to the direction you want to be going once you come off the wall, and they just kind of drift until you can get them into a streamlined position.
What tends to happen is that they haven’t figured out how to really drive the somersault with their head and core muscles yet so they end up using their arms to try to scull their body over in the water.
We used to make people practice sommersaults while holding a stick in both hands in order to emphasize the idea of sculling bad- use core when it came to learning how to properly get your body around.
Arms… too often I see novice swimmers flailing their arms out to the side trying to “spin” their way into a somersault. Your arms should end up pointing more or less sraight back, parallel to the surface at the end of the stroke, and remain in that position as your torso rotates around under them on the flip. Then, you use your arms to “pull” your torso back upwards in line with the rest of your body as you push off (the arms then should already be in position to extend straight ahead without having to pull them back in from the sides first). If you look at a good swimmer do it all at once, the arms end up barely moving at all from the end of the stroke to the push-off extension. If you’re having to flail the arms to complete the flip, then you need to work on a smoother flipping motion…
…here, you shouldn’t need to think of launching your legs up and over; rather, the flip itself should be a natural rotation of driving your head down and allowing the curl of your back/legs to automatically pivot around your center of mass. Your legs then should be rotating so your feet are coming around towards the wall close to perpendicular for the push-off, and not travelling downward parallel to the wall before executing the push. I also allow one knee/leg to curl a little lower than the other, sort of “bicyclish” so that when I push off, my feet aren’t both completely level with each other; this helps “screw” me off the wall for a smoother transition into the regular face-down position.
Not what works for me - I breathe on the 2nd out of the turn - anything else and I wind up all cattywompus. I’d rather my swimmers get the process and smooth form (mainly - not pushing off the wall into the next lane) and THEN worry about them getting faster.
Likewise, I breathe bilaterally all the time and swim straight. And I usually throw hypoxic 5s and 7s into every practice/distance at some point. The practicing and ability in my back pocket means if I turn my head and get a facefull of water I’m still ok - ox dep or not. I breathe 3’s in races most usually, just helps me know what’s around and keeps me calm.
It’s just what works for me and what I teach…racing means breathing when necessary.
Lance, I’ve been told that part about not breathing off the wall also but is that just a training thing? I have noticed that in the highest levels of competition, at the longer distances everyone is now breathing on the first stroke. Also, they breath every 2 arm strokes now instead of every 3. It just makes sense in an aerobic performance that you need to maximize your oxygen intake.
And breaking out after the flags doesn’t apply to sprints does it? You need to break out at precisely that point in which your streamline speed has come down to your swim pace, which for a 25 second 50m swimmer is pretty much immediately.
Thanks.
Many swimmers (especially elites) are faster underwater than they are swimming. If you watch Phelps…his whip (dolphin) kick is extremely fast and efficient underwater.
There was a butterflier back 4 or 5 olympics ago…I think his name was stewart. He was famous for underwater kicking the vast majority of his race. He was a world record holder i believe. Not real sure on that…he was very fast.
The problem with this technique is oxygen dep. For some reason it is hard to breath when completely submerged. As much as we’d like to believe some have gills…they don’t.
Now, as it applies to the non-kicking triathlete…coming out at the flags in a 25-yard pool is about right. You slow down considerably coming off the wall with no kick. But if you’ve got good turns and a solid whip kick…you can easily be two body lengths past the plags before your breakout.
They are now teaching the kids to come off the wall on their back and flip onto their side to whip kick. That way the kick doesn’t have to fight gravity I guess. I am sure that’s worth .01 seconds…but hey…that’s what Phelps won a gold medal with.