Flip Turn Tips

I highly recommend getting a hold of Lindsay Benko GoSwim vid. In any case, here are 3 stages: 1. stand in shallow water, practice the flip in water only 2. stand close to end, do a flip and hold your feet position on the wall 3. do a flip turn kicking the wall face pointing up once you do all three well you should be able to do a flip turn like the pros.

Goswim.tv has a drill of the week video for flip turns that might help you. Aside from that, just practice.

The most common mistake I see is trying to turn back to facing down too soon. This will make you go off to the side. Watch your feet go over as Lainey said. Make sure they go straight over. Plant your feet on the wall,push off and then began to turn over. As you get proficient at that you can begin to start to turn over slightly as your feet touch the wall,but you should still be more on your back than side when you push off.

One or two strokes from the turn take you breath, flip and blow part of your air out of the nose. You should still have enough air to make at least two strokes after push off and streamlining before taking another breath. You may have to work up to being able to breath two strokes out. But if you are blowing part of your air out threw your nose, then water shouldn't be able to go up.

I always went off to the side too until one day when I was practicing. I was thinking about what my coach had said when she was breaking it down into steps. When you plant your feet on the wall you should be able to see the ceiling (indoor pool) through the surface of the water. That is when I realized I wasn't seeing the ceiling. Why? Because I was closing my eyes... natural when you are going headlong into a wall. Your body gets a lot of feedback about where it is in 'space' from info coming through the eyes and ears. If you close off one sense you aren't getting all of the feed back you can. Once I made myself keep my eyes openned I started going over straight. Then my body learned how it felt to go over straight. Lainey

I looked at the goswim tip and its pretty good for the basics. But does anyone have any good drills for practicing fast flip turns? I swam a short course meters meet this weekend and my times were about the same or slower than my long course times. I don't gain any speed off the walls. And out of the corner of my eyes, I could see that I am getting passed on the walls. I think I am doing something wrong with my arms as I spin. Like trying to scull and stablize my body as I rotate. Can someone describe what my arms should be doing as I start to turn, rotate, then push off?

Coming into the wall my arms are at my sides, I tuck my head to initiate the turn, give a bit of a dolphin kick to add some speed. As my feet are coming in contact with the wall I extend my arms into a streamline to prepare for the pushoff. I sometimes push off on my back but on faster turns I find myself at a 45 degree angle between back and side. I have found that my faster turns come more naturally than my slower turns. It all seems to come together with speed.

A couple of other tips: When you tuck your head, TUCK YOUR HEAD. Chin on chest. Also do not extend your legs too early in the turn. Your body will rotate faster the closer your legs are to your body (simple physics). You don't want to turn you body into a ball - but you don't want your legs extended either.

Yes, I forgot the leg tuck part. You will know if you forget that portion because you will not have the ability to get a good push off. Been down that road before!

Thanks, that helps. I've been trying to follow my lead arm with my head to initiate my turn. Then I do this weird quick scull as I rotate. With that I end up with two problems. One is that I have to time the wall perfectly. My coach told me that I slow down into the wall. Probably because I am trying to time it. And two, I don't think I rotate very quickly when I do the scull thingy. My body is not as tight as it could be when I rotate. I think having my hands at my side will help give me a little more fudge factor on the timing so I can attack it more aggressively instead of thinking about timing it. And hopefully It will also prevent me from doing any sculling as I rotate. Now its time to practice it. These are great tips. Thanks again Kevin