flip turn and oxygen debt

Read through Ande's Swimming Tips. There are a lot of gems in there. As you get tired it becomes more difficult to hold your form together. Things get ragged, you waste more energy off the wall and need to take a breath sooner. Maybe practicing your break out when you're tired will help. Concentrate on your streamline, set a goal distance off the wall before you take your first breath, etc. Also, if you get used to doing a couple streamline dolphin kicks you can maybe sacrifice them as you get tired yet still hold a good streamline off the wall. S

I run into this a lot of times. Try to relax as much as you can, concentrate on doing a quality flip turn and then on the breakout - you can slowly add things like the SDK, and the finer points as you get more comfortable. Lately at the end of a practice I will do a short set of 20 flip turn/breakouts. Starting about mid-pool I will sprint to the wall, turn, try 4 SDK off the wall and not breath until I have completed at least one stroke and stop - wash, rinse , repeat. I'll start slow and increase my speed for the last 5. If you read Ande's tips - he says a lot about creating habits and how eventually you automatically do something. It's all about creating good habits . It seems to work well. However, like Alexander said, the timing of the breath before the turn can make or break it.

I used to have a horrible time with flip turns, when I was younger I only did them in races and hardly ever in practice. 3 years ago as I began to swim again, I made it a point to do more flip turns. Each practice I'd do a few more than the last, and after about 4 months or so, it became habit and now I do them continuously without thinking about it. It was a bit tough at first and I was always feeling out of breath, but gradually over time my endurance got better. :D

I have a similar problem, I find that there are two causes usually: 1. Taking a breath too long before starting the flip 2. I get water in my nose during flips, so I blow air out of my nose to keep the water from getting in. Unfortunately I tend to blow my air doing this instead of using a small stream. My highschool coach always told me not to take a breath until I'd completed at least 2 strokes after the turn. I have a really hard time with that, and I believe it's because of the reasons above. I think hypoxic breathing drills would be useful to help out on that issue, teaches you to live with the amount of air in your lungs for longer periods of time without taking a breath.

I have been suffering from the same problem. I have personally found that the oxygen deprivation is just not worth it at the cost of hitting the wall during a workout. I breath every other stroke and into and out of every turn, including sneaking in a breath into the turn if my stroke is not timed right. As I started doing distance sets this summer I had to shamefully resort to open turns after a couple thousand yards. But I found it liberating to admit that I just couldn't handle the turns as I was able to complete grueling sets without losing speed. After a while it has become less and less of an issue. I don't know that any coach would agree with this strategy. I used to force myself to swim 500+ yards warmup breathing every 3rd stroke but I don't feel like it ever got me anywhere besides miserable. I'm hoping that the distance swimming will help me explode into and out of the turns when I go back to sprinting this fall - but I'm not holding my breath.

My breathing into the turn is during the recovery before my last pull with that arm. I don't know that I would try to push off nearer the surface. There is energy savings to be had by streamlining under the turbulence you just created swimming into the wall. During the streamline I work on relaxing muscles not needed in the streamline (i.e., neck, chest, facial muscles, etc.) That seems to not make the oxygen need so urgent. For proof of this, try and swim the entire length of the pool underwater using *** stroke underwater work. The second time, completely relax your mind and your face and your neck and see how much easier it is or how much further you get.

I always breathe in and out of every turn. As I've lengthened my swims to doing 4K and 5K non-stop swims routinely, that doesn't change. I have, however, gotten much better at lengthening the streamline off the wall which turns out to be a huge energy saver in the longer swims.

I just got back into swimming a few months ago after an almost 2 year break. I started swimming around 1993. I still have to get back to my old shape and realized a lot of my usual workouts I have stored on my computer are still a bit too tough so the flip turns get exhausting after I'm halfway through my workout. I tend to do a flip turn in one side and a normal turn to catch that extra breath on the other side when I start getting tired. Over time the body will get more used to it. I also do an occasional 25 yard under water swim to improve my lung capcity.

Take a step back to 5-year-old lessons and revisit blowing bubbles. I have found that most folks with this problem just don't know or remember how to breathe and exhale properly. If you're holding your breath and exhaling while turning your head to the side to breathe, you're limiting the time you have to bring in fresh air. Blow those out slowly while you're swimming, so that when you turn to breathe, you're spending all/most of that time taking in fresh air. As for turns, you're probably blowing out way too hard and fast to prevent water going up your nose. To correct, try this... it will be uncomfortable, but go through a few turns without exhaling at all. The point is to figure out exactly where during the tumble the water starts going the wrong way. Figure that point out, and then do a few turns slowly exhaling through your nose starting at that point. You should have plenty of air leftover for a good, long, perfect streamline and breakout.

In order to get a good breath before the flip, try to EXHALE strongly in order to get a better air intake before the turn.