What's the Minimum Depth Required to Do a Flip Turn?

the LCM pool i grew up practicing in was only about 2 feet deep at the turn end....having to decide if it was better to bounce your head off the bottom or knee yourself in the face... :shakeshead: but we did all have nice tight turns by the end of the summer! Wow, that makes my pools look good now. I was wondering about the banging of the head. It's doesn't seem like a a very good idea to knock yourself unconscious underwater--especially since in the Bally pools I swim in, the lifeguards are usually not sitting in the lifeguard chair--they are sitting against some wall reading a magazine or doing their homework. Mitigating that to some degree is that there is often at least three people in the 50' lanes. At the NYC pools I swim in the lifeguards are required to maintain vigilence, but I wonder how well they can see you 50 meters away if you're on the bottom. I think I'll put on my orange swim cap before I start practicing. Maybe I'll put a little padding under the cap too, and give the guards a heads up if I'm going to be practicing flip turns.

Wow, that makes my pools look good now. I was wondering about the banging of the head. It's doesn't seem like a a very good idea to knock yourself unconscious underwater--especially since in the Bally pools I swim in, the lifeguards are usually not sitting in the lifeguard chair--they are sitting against some wall reading a magazine or doing their homework. Mitigating that to some degree is that there is often at least three people in the 50' lanes. Wow, I had never seen the words Bally pools and lifeguards in the same sentence before. I'm amazed after my experience with Bally pools in Texas; no lifeguard, water was 96 degrees--couldn't swim there. I guess I can flip turn about anywhere; after you've done a ka-zillion of them, shallow or deep, it just becomes normal after awhile. If you can flip turn in a kiddy pool, you are a contortionist and can flip turn anywhere. I prefer 3 feet of water, but less is okay too. donna

Hehe Donna I clip the bottom with my butt occasionally, in the shallow end but that just causes me to laugh. I have an orange swmcap too, but I never wear my it when pracitsing.