1. I started doing flip turns about a year ago, and I'm comfortable doing them when I am working out alone. But when circle swimming with my masters team, it's hard to get comfortable doing flip turns coming in at an angle to the wall. Any suggestions on how to approach these kinds of flip turns?
2. I am also pretty new to butterfly. I am concerned about crashing my hand into someone swimming back toward me on the opposite side of the lane. I will sometimes try to extend my outside hand out slightly over the lane marker to stay as far to the right as possible, but I often brush the lane marker with the top of my hand as my arm is coming up out of the water. Any suggestions on navigation?
Regarding question #2... you can suggest to your coaches to have odd lanes circle clock-wise and even lanes circle counter-clockwise. This helps reduce the opportunities for swimmers to "cross limbs" in the fly/back. you still have the issue within your individual lane, but the swimmers across the lane line from you are moving in the same direction.
An added benefit is if you make swimmers switch even/odd lanes each practice, they do not "get in a rut" of always angling into/out of the wall the same way, which becomes a habit they may carry into their meet swims.
Regarding question #2... you can suggest to your coaches to have odd lanes circle clock-wise and even lanes circle counter-clockwise. This helps reduce the opportunities for swimmers to "cross limbs" in the fly/back. you still have the issue within your individual lane, but the swimmers across the lane line from you are moving in the same direction.
An added benefit is if you make swimmers switch even/odd lanes each practice, they do not "get in a rut" of always angling into/out of the wall the same way, which becomes a habit they may carry into their meet swims.
