Are flipturns for everyone? (Oxygen!!!)

The sudden plateau in performance just means you’re graduating to the next level of performance, as well as conditioning, and just need to figure out what’s holding ya back . It is definitely nothing to get discouraged about man. Study the basics of stroke fundamentals. Sometimes video can help, quite a lot Indeed, I believe that every session, even ones that go badly, is a penny into the piggie-bank. I solved some problems today. Thanks.

O K flip at the deep end for now.

So, I have been flipping only at the deep-end on warm-ups and cool-downs. I'm getting better!! But this will take a long time. One thing that I noticed: When I'm cooling down, after a chunk of swimming, my mid-lower back gets stiff, and flip-turns become much more difficult than they did in the warmup. Do any of you real swimmers experience this? :) Is it just a fatigue thing?

I have much the same issues and here are a few thoughts regarding the turns and the lower back. As you tire your breathing becomes gulps of air rather than deep breaths. The key is preparation. You can't breath deeply without getting rid of the old air first. Developing a good exhale is critical. Humming while exhaling and even giving a "tennis player grunt" underwater may help you to make this a habit. Plan your breaths going into the turn just like you plan your distance from the wall to flip. If you can develop the ability to take an extra breath on your off arm going into the wall it will help. I have had good success with this especially at slower speed in a 200 or 500 race. Once again concentrate on the exhale as much as you do on the inhale. The lower back issue is all from poor flip turn form as you tire and struggle to get it over with to speed up your next breath. I would guess you are coming into the wall and almost stopping than throwing your legs over your head. This can cause the pain in your lower back. Flip turns are actually a whole body thing starting with the upper body going down and than followed by the lower body. Bending your knees to a 45 degree angle in the air may also help rather than a 180 pike turn. Perhaps another forumite could give a better description than I have. But your running out of air at the turn defiantly contributes to your lower back issues. So I agree with your using an open turn to sort of reset when you get into this situation.

Excellent advices above! Using the flip turn (as well as being able to kick fast) will probably help you swim faster 200’s, 100’s and 50’s freestyles. The flipping O2 bottleneck during distance freestyle is very common (and seems to more so effect swimmers who’ve learned to swim as adults.) I’ve been swimming over 10 years and I still feel the punishment of flip turning while swimming over 200. But the efficiency outweighs the break in breathing rhythm. Keep working on flip turns, in the long run they typically are better. And too many open turns might overwork rotator cuff muscles When my lower back goes out I can’t even execute a flip turn at first

Longtime swimmer here, pretty much most of my life... We did flip turns in the 60s, all the kids did flip turns when I started swimming competitely about 1963..so that's a long time. I have no idea when they started, but well before then. The one big change is we used to do a really shallow flat start and the blocks were on the shallow end!. I would say the backstroke turn was a little newer , we originally just did a crab style circle around staying on your back until the rules changed and you didn't have to touch with your hands, and it changed to a flip over. I just swim on my own now but I have cut back on my flipturns just because they make my stomach feel upset... I dont think my head can handle the quick roll now at my age I guess..I think it's something to do with balance maybe. Anyway, no one else mentioned that..I would agree you need to exhale forcibly throughout the turn..I like doing them but my stomach would rebell. Maybe if I did more I could get used to them...again.. At our pool there is now a plethora of private competitive lessons which I had never heard of before. The teachers are quite good. I overheard one teacher tell the kids to keep a kettle bell in the bathroom and do 10 squats every time she went into the bathroom. This was to develop the push against the wall muscles.. I was doing butterfly last year and another swimmer stopped me to ask if I had done butterfly all my life!. I answered quickly , no,of course not, just since I was 10! Then I laughed as that was 55 years ago... but I told her that I had some bad lessons in those early days they really didnt know how to teach the newer strokes back then. We had to do the whip kick exercise on the deck pushing up from kickboards. With your heels out and knees together, I used to do it easily and practice at home, haha! I dont think I can even assume the position, much less push up...

I learned to swim as a kid, but didn't swim competitively or anything. I'd go to the pool and do laps when I was in the Army, but did mostly breaststroke and/or free with open turns. During the summer between years in college, I started swimming at a local college. I was about 22 or 23 at the time. Most of the time I was the only one in the pool, the lifeguard was bored, and she started giving me 1-1 training. I'm not saying I became a perfect swimmer from this, but I went from poor to somewhat mediocre. ;) When it came time for flipturns, she had me start on an end and turn in the middle of the pool (where you don't push on anything). After doing that for a while, I finally worked up the courage to do it against a real wall. Once I became comfortable with that (we're probably talking 2-3 weeks), then her advice was to work my way up to doing all of my freestyle with flipturns. I'm guessing I probably swam 2000 to 2500 per swim then, with 90% as freestyle. Most of that freestyle was straight swims; I'd do something like one flip for every 4-5 turns, then one for every 3, then every 2, until I was doing it all the time. I'm guessing this took another 2-3 weeks before I felt comfortable flipping on every turn. I do remember that when I went back to my college and did lap swim a few people said that I looked much better. When I started grad school after that, there was a swimming group (kind of like masters) that I joined, and knowing flipturns helped immensely. Then of course once I was a part of a real USMS group. Most of my swimming now is focused on open water. There are (normally) no walls, so no flipping. But when I'm in a pool I still do flipturns without even thinking. I think that is key--just get in the habit of doing them, and they really don't become a big deal. And full disclosure--I do have asthma, and occasionally have breathing problems while swimming (although it is pretty rare, and has been a long time since I remember it happening). I don't think the asthma has had any impact on my ability to flip.

Fascinating. Thanks for these recent posts. I enjoyed reading/learning about these experiences. As for me, I have given up on flip turning for now. I'll try to learn good open turning. Maybe in a year or two, when I am a stronger swimmer, it will be the right time to do flipturns. But right now, the oxygen debt is too much. We all learn/progress/build at different rates. I just don't see flipturns in my immediate future.

I guess not.