Flip Turns

By Coach Doug Garcia

Recently I’ve worked with a number of swimmers on fine-tuning their flip turns. Here’s a couple of reminders to everyone on how to get the most out of making a great flip turn.

Accelerate going into the turn/wall. Think of physics here and Newton’s second law: the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting on it, and inversely proportional to its mass. From my physics professor friend: “Yeah, it’s like bouncing a ball off the wall. If you throw it harder, it’ll come back harder. Energy is easier than momentum to explain this. The wall is not going to move, so the ball/swimmer has to keep the energy. So, faster in, faster out.” That solid object called the wall is the fastest part of the pool; use it to your advantage. I have heard triathletes say, “well there’s no wall in the middle of the lake.” This is true, but a great flip turn in the pool sets a great tone for your entire swim and helps keep that momentum going.

Get your breathing under control. Elite athletes train to breathe just before the flags going into the wall, and not taking a breath until after the flags going out of the wall. This is a challenging equation. Most master swimmers can take one breath between the flags and the wall going into the turn, and then make it past the flags before breathing going out of the wall. One thing’s for certain: slowing down, looking up, taking a breath and then doing the flip turn is not the most efficient way to make your turn.

Practice coming off the wall on your back. We do a set every so often where we swim a 50 broken as 25 freestyle, 25 backstroke. This is an unnatural turn as no events exist in swimming where this turn happens. However, this is a great turn to learn how to approach the flip turn and not rush getting back onto your belly. Remember that in flip turns, freestyle and backstroke, you should be on your side most of the time anyway. Rushing to return to your belly serves no purpose. This turn is also a great way to learn how to avoid getting water up your nose and that wonderful burning sensation (try slowly blowing bubbles out your nose or humming). During a normal flip turn, all you need is to turn your feet from the 12 o’clock position to the 1 o’clock position on the wall and that i enough to rotate your body around to your side.

Streamline position and keep your head down. You’ve heard me say this before, “no superman off the wall”, that is, hands shoulder width apart, and looking forward. The best streamline position is to stack your hands on top of each other, with your ears and biceps aligned and your eyes looking down. This is the correct streamline position. If you can see the person in front of you as you leave the wall, your head is too high (and you’re leaving too early). Remember, the streamline position can carry the momentum from the push further than if you did the superman.

I started flip turns very late in my swimming career. One mentor told me, you have to get through a 1000 bad flip turns before the great ones start to come, and I truly believe this is true. If you’re not doing flip turns, start them today. If you need help fine tuning them, please don’t hesitate to ask.