I would do a poll but don't know how.
My pool does not circle swim. I have my own lane. When I learned to flip turn I roll to the right i.e. when I roll I will be looking left when I break out. When I occasionally circle swim, I find this to be aqward and have difficulty heading to the right side of the lane on pushoff.
My question is, do coaches prefer teaching one over the other?
Former Member
I'll go both ways. Which ever direction I think will be fun at the time.
I usually go right so I can take a breath as soon as I break out. My coach tells me I need to take a stroke or two before I breathe but I taught myself to flip turn and now I can't un-learn it. :shakeshead: :help:
... maybe the most natural would be carrying your legs over from your "strong" breathing side to the weak side? If you breath left, then you carry your legs over to the right, and push off on your right side(?) At least, that's how a breastroker swimmin' free does it :thhbbb:
I turn whichever arm is there when I get to the wall. Otherwise I would have to glide into the wall or take a short stroke to get a certain arm if I wanted to always use the same one. I never felt that circle swimming affected my ability to go straight in and out on turns in meets. ??? Never thought about it before.
I also turn left when doing *** and fly and I know I prefer to do a left bucket turn in back for IMs (and I am too old to be really comfortable with the back flip turns and prefer going to my left but will do either side.)
I roll to my right, first stroke out of the turn is with my right arm. I'm not sure how this habit evolved, maybe because this makes it easier to keep an eye on lane mates so they don't smack into me or vice versa.
I think I roll clockwise. Approaching the wall, I'll flip, and push off on my back, then dolphin kick and turn my right shoulder down, with both hands in front. I'm left handed, so I'll usually break out with my left. That is of course when I'm practicing flip turns, I'm lazy, so I do a lot of open turns. Been trying to make myself flip turn more often, but it's slow going.
:bouncing:
