Rant: you have been warned.
In my first year or two of triathlon swimming as an AOS I would tumble turn. It was ugly and I was slow, around 2 minutes per hundred. Then I started to encounter some chlorine sensitivity with the nighttime stuffy nose and sneezes from he**. Took me a while to figure out what it was and the short of it was that I stopped the tumble turns in an effort to minimize the amount of water I was getting into my nose. Open turned for about another two years. Not certain how or why but just a quickly as my chlorine - nose issues appeared they seemed to disappear.
I am starting a big swim block now and have decided to start tumble turning again. It is kicking my butt to say the least. I have been trying to gradually incorporate it while swimming in a 50m pool. Started with one TT every 4th length and built up over one month to where I am doing it now on every turn. The thing is it just throttling me in terms of my sensation of O2 depravation / intensity. For example swimming at CSS +6 per hundred was a good steady pace with the open turns. With the TT it feels like borderline threshold efforts especially above 400m repeats. Don’t even get me started on how I am feeling when the plan calls for a bit of B5’s with these turns.
Yes I just need to man up, “roger that” and carry on. Maybe this belongs in the “cry like a little …” thread. Now I am also wondering if this exercise in a couple of less breaths per 100 will even carry over to a boost in OW fitness/speed. And why did I decide to start TT’ing again? I got my CSS down to 1:36 so I wanted to try to fit in and be like the dudes who look like swimming hard*** each time they hit the wall and turn. I don’t think it is working so far.
Yes I just need to man up, “roger that” and carry on. Maybe this belongs in the “cry like a little …” thread. Now I am also wondering if this exercise in a couple of less breaths per 100 will even carry over to a boost in OW fitness/speed. And why did I decide to start TT’ing again? I got my CSS down to 1:36 so I wanted to try to fit in and be like the dudes who look like swimming hard*** each time they hit the wall and turn. I don’t think it is working so far.
First, it’s “fewer breaths,” not “less breaths.”
https://youtu.be/KyD1asFBH-U
There’s never an athletic situation where less breathing is better than more breathing. Feel like you are running out of air when you do flip turns? Breathe into the wall and out of the wall (but don’t just pop up and take a breath: maintain your streamline).
Avoiding water in the nose is simple: balance the air pressure in your nose by matching the pressure of the water trying to get in by “breathing out through your nose without actually exhaling any air.” You’ll get to the point where you can tell before it happens that you screwed up coming into the wall and need to exert a bit more pressure to keep the water out.
There shouldn’t be any water going in the nose in the turn.
Your experience of oxygen debt is totally normal and i think this is experienced by all new flip turners b/c your losing that big breath at the wall that you get with an open turn. I can’t remember experiencing this in the very beginning of my swimming b/c i was only 5, but i def remember experiencing this when getting back into swimming at age 22, after a 3 yr lay-off. It takes a month or two but eventually your body will become accustomed to the lack of O2 for 4-5 sec or so.
First, it’s “fewer breaths,” not “less breaths.”
Roger That!
There’s never an athletic situation where less breathing is better than more breathing. Feel like you are running out of air when you do flip turns? Breathe into the wall and out of the wall (but don’t just pop up and take a breath: maintain your streamline).
I will try to focus on this the next session. I feel like I have a good rhythm coming into the wall for the turn while breathing on the 3’s and since the turn is something new to me going for that extra breath right before initiating it throws me off. So depending on the timing I am coming into the wall just before it’s time to breathe on schedule so I forgo it to keep my rhythm going.
Avoiding water in the nose is simple: balance the air pressure in your nose by matching the pressure of the water trying to get in by “breathing out through your nose without actually exhaling any air.” You’ll get to the point where you can tell before it happens that you screwed up coming into the wall and need to exert a bit more pressure to keep the water out.
My water up the nose issues were borderline zero. Sure, after 2.8K in a 50m pool there would be a turn or two that I would foul up for whatever reason and get a bit of water up the nose. It was the chlorine issues with my nose that were so bad that I stopped TT’ing to try to prevent even that little bit of water that would occasionally get up there from setting me off. For the record it didn’t help.
This is exactly what I am experiencing. One month into this so I am going to trust you that I just need to soldier on for one more month.
Let me ask you for the real swimmers with a lot of pool time under their belt… Say you are doing a repeat where it calls for breathing every 5 strokes. Depending on timing you could find yourself taking your last breath further from the wall rather than nearer. Will the real swimmers go for an off pattern last breath right before the wall like the previous poster said? Or do they just rely on their blue whale sized lungs to carry them through the turn? What about on breathe 7’s?
I would probably black out if I tried that one.
This is exactly what I am experiencing. One month into this so I am going to trust you that I just need to soldier on for one more month.
Let me ask you for the real swimmers with a lot of pool time under their belt… Say you are doing a repeat where it calls for breathing every 5 strokes. Depending on timing you could find yourself taking your last breath further from the wall rather than nearer. Will the real swimmers go for an off pattern last breath right before the wall like the previous poster said? Or do they just rely on their blue whale sized lungs to carry them through the turn? What about on breathe 7’s?
I would probably black out if I tried that one.
I always take a breath on my last stroke before the flip turn, regardless of what the “breathing protocol” is for a given repeat. Personally, i don’t think those breath-limited swims are worth much and i only do them if i am in a Masters group where the coach watches carefully. I never do them when training on my own or with my own small training group but rather i almost always breath every two strokes, e.g. every cycle of my arms. I prefer breathing on my left so usually i breath during my left arm recovery. As klehner stated, it is always best to have as much O2 as possible. 
Thanks Mulk, good stuff! Time to start getting that last breath.
Thanks Mulk, good stuff! Time to start getting that last breath.
Aaron - You’re very welcome!!! I enjoy swimming discussions.
It will get better over time; give it a few months. As others have said, breathe going into the wall until you are more used to it. Exhale consistently during the turn/glide to prevent the “omg, I’m running out of air” panic.
I swim in a really short pool (50’), so I typically only do flip turns at one end (and open turns at the other) to keep from going too hypoxic. In a 25yd pool or longer, I’ll go back to flips at both ends.
Thanks for that. Just got back from a recovery session in a 25m pool (50m is the norm) Managed to breath each time before hitting the wall on one end. The “last gasp” right before the wall went pretty well, didn’t derail my streamline, and with the reduced intensity had me feeling OK to even good.
Key paced-technique session tommorrow 3.3km in the big boy pool so looking forward to getting back at it. Will post an update.
Kudos to training in a 50 foot pool. Thats is some serious dedication. Reminds of a dude training for IMFL in a shortish pool over in Mosul a few years back. But I don’t think it was that short!
I wouldn’t worry about flip-turns. It is ridiculous to want to be matchy-matchy, then again I am the guy with an aluminum bike, 42mm tires, rear rack and baskets while everyone is on their carbon frame with GP4000s. You want to get faster, keep up with people who are cheating and doing flip turns. I stopped in 2009 after some breathing issues in Chicago at a highly chlorinated pool but occasionally threw one in for good measure. It was impossible to explain to people the all-day drip that was taking place… they simply don’t know what they don’t know.
Fast forward and last year I was diagnosed with Eustachian Tube Dysfunction, I have negative pressure (should be positive) in my Eustachian Tubes which are essentially at the back of the nose/mouth and connect up to your ear. Anything in the nasal cavity has a propensity to get sucked in. I am even more adamant now about not flipping at least for myself. I also have a weak vestibular (balance organ) so ya flipping literally throws my vestibular into overload and it is not good. I wrote this Flip-turns versus Non-flips turns piece kind of a joke, but really I am taking it more serious. If you want to be the fastest pool swimmer you can be by all means flip. If not then what is the point.
Some good points there Gerlach. Been really busy the past 24 hours so going to take a look at your Flip-Turn piece a little bit later. I have known quite a few people over the years how have had ENT issues that have been aggravated by a lot of time in the cockpit. The vestibular issues are not a joke and they can be downright debilitating just for normal life let alone trying to fly.
As an update to my attempts in my original rant/post I had a good 3.3K key session yesterday with a mix of technique drills and some shorter paced repeats at CSS+3 to CSS-1. Taking a final breath going into the wall irrespective of breathing pattern - cycle made a big difference. The O2 balance felt pretty manageable the entire time. Definitely can see a light at the end of the tunnel now. Thanks to all for the input on this one.
If you want to be the fastest pool swimmer you can be by all means flip. If not then what is the point.
I’m waiting for the howls of outrage from the flip-turn police that they are essential to being a good triathlon & open water swimmer. I personally think it’s more about swim culture and projecting a certain persona than anything else. I actually have nothing against flip turns, I know how to do them but for me, I’ve just never gotten that comfortable with them, which probably has more to do with learning a slightly athletic skill in my mid-60s than anything else. I see plenty of people swimming slowly and doing flip turns. I mix them in a bit in my workouts but just not feeling the love, and have seen no tangible benefit to my swimming when I was really trying to do them all of the time.
I do think every triathlon swimmer should strive to at least have a fast open turn, and not a grab and hang on lazy turn. If they want to add flip turns, by all means do so as it certainly can’t hurt. If you’re planning to compete in master’s swimming meets, by all means learn them. I just don’t see the carryover to open water swimming, personally.
Just a little FYI to let you know it will get better. I’ve been doing tris for 33 years now but started when I was 21 as an AOS. The first few years I tried to learn flip turns at the beginning of every season. I’d get OK at them, but every time I started to try and do my main sets with them, I’d come up so out of breath and gasping for air that I ended up bailing and just went back to not doing them at all.
Cut to fall of 2016. My swimming had gotten so bad in recent years I decided to swim 6 days/week over the winter to try and put a dent in it. (most of my years doing tris I only swam March-August for tri season) And I started swimming with a Masters group for the first time ever. So I decided with a coach and experienced swimmers there to help me, after not even trying them in 25 years or so, this was the time to finally learn them. I did the same thing though, got OK at them, but once again just couldn’t get past the lack of breath thing when going hard so I bailed again and figured that’s it, I’m done trying.
But for some reason I decided to try one more time this past off-season. And after months of struggling with them and terrible inconsistency, I FINALLY got them down. It still took a long time until I was really comfortable doing them swimming hard, but for the last 6 months or so I now do them on all my swimming including all my intervals and hard sets, and I’m past feeling like I am constantly out of breath. Occasionally if I don’t get a good breath before the turn, I’ll come up a bit out of breath, but for the most part it is just natural to me now.
A long way of telling you, hey, stick with it. I think most people get it a lot quicker than I did. But for some it just takes longer. I think if you stick it out eventually you’ll get there. And I feel much more like a “real” swimmer now.
One more thing I will add. For as long as I can remember in tris, I would get out a couple minutes in open water and feel like I was dying. I would usually end up just saying screw it, and settle into an easy pace thinking let’s just get to T1. In the pool I do time trials all the time, and feel like I push as hard as I can and hurt like hell and get the most out of what little swim ability I have. In tris I never get out of the water feeling like I time-trialed. I’ve done two races so far this year and they were the two best swims for as long as I can remember and my highest placings in years in the water. I hammered the whole way and feel like I left nothing out there and never wore out. I don’t know for certain if it is the flip turns. I know whenever threads on flip turns come up all the swimmers say how much better they are for open water swimming. I never would have believed the difference could have been this dramatic. Still seems hard for me to believe, but I don’t know what else it could be.
I will contradict what TG said - tumble turns are important and it’s worth your while to do them. I can’t imagine trying to swim fast freestyle repeats with an open turn at the end of every length. I’d go crazy.
I also question the breathe every 5 or 7. I am a 25 min HIM swimmer; I very rarely breathe every 5 and I might breathe every 7 if I were racing a 100 free. I would not do that in a distance set; I breathe a combination of every 3 or 2. I suspect I do something like 3/2/2/3/2/2…
Try this: as you approach the wall, take a breath before the turn. As you turn, exhale out of your nose. Push off the wall and take one stroke, then breathe. As you build up to this, you might push off the wall and breathe on your first stroke.
I get oxygen deprived when I do slow flip turns; if I am swimming slowly, I find it harder to forgo the breath pre- and post-turn. If I’m swimming fast, I can do it.
You might set aside a day where you go in and practice JUST turning. Start at the flags, sprint into the wall, turn, push off, stroke, get to back under the flags.
Hope that helps.
If you want to be the fastest pool swimmer you can be by all means flip. If not then what is the point.
I’m waiting for the howls of outrage from the flip-turn police that they are essential to being a good triathlon & open water swimmer. I personally think it’s more about swim culture and projecting a certain persona than anything else. I actually have nothing against flip turns, I know how to do them but for me, I’ve just never gotten that comfortable with them, which probably has more to do with learning a slightly athletic skill in my mid-60s than anything else. I see plenty of people swimming slowly and doing flip turns. I mix them in a bit in my workouts but just not feeling the love, and have seen no tangible benefit to my swimming when I was really trying to do them all of the time.
I do think every triathlon swimmer should strive to at least have a fast open turn, and not a grab and hang on lazy turn. If they want to add flip turns, by all means do so as it certainly can’t hurt. If you’re planning to compete in master’s swimming meets, by all means learn them. I just don’t see the carryover to open water swimming, personally.
I try to at least do a fast open turn where I’m not popping up and pausing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx31AJjif0o&t=197s
Thanks for the good words. The reality is I just want AOS to swim more and I find that people seem to get so upset when people don’t flip turn. I mean the first time I swam with Kienle he berated (in a nice joking way) me about it. I think there is a lot of people who are legitimately offended open-turns. No doubt you CAN swim faster with flip-turns, just like I believe you will always have the potential to be faster on the bike with a heal-down pedaling style. The problem is I don’t see the same people berating people about open-turns also berating people about toe-down pedaling. I just try to be open-minded and look at the + and - of both.
My real issue with open vs flip turns is that for me, and likely the vast majority of and swimmers, you can’t help but cheat rest at the wall on hard sets.
We’re talking like only adding 0.5 seconds per wall as you fatigue on an open turn hard set but that’s an entire 2 sec per 100 in 25yds, which is eminently noticeable compared to the flip.
I actually think a of folks who can flip but choose not to, confuse this lack of cheat-rest discomfort as flip turn discomfort on hard sets.
Flipturn counts as 2 breaths in my swimming/coaching experience, so if i’m going to make it through the pattern using that, i’ll continue, if my breath was supposed to come in the middle of the extra 2 i’ll breath into the wall and restart the sequence off the wall (hope that makes sense). I don’t do a ton of breath holding anymore, but do find that it helps center me sometimes to slow down and stretch out. Happy Swimming!