How To Do a Flip Turn
If you've ever spent time at the swimming pool doing laps, you will notice that most of the folks do the ole standard "grab the wall and push off" instead of doing a flip turn. Why ? Well chances are people don't know how, find them to challenging, they feel that they go into oxygen debt or my favorite "I don't do them in a triathlon". We my response to that is "you don't hold onto the wall during a triathlon". Here is a short video that covers the basics of a flip turn, and next time you are at the pool give it a try, what do you have to lose?
Open turns hurt your training and performance. Every time you stop to reach for the wall, your hand comes out of the water, you grab the wall and basically you are taking a break. The more tired you get, the longer you hold onto the wall ... Is that good? I would say not, kind of like stopping every 200 yards on a run and walking a few steps. This is good for starting out but as you progress start to incorporate flip turns. By swimming lengths and using flip turns, you are most definitely improving the performance of your swim workout Some people have said that doing flip turns during your swim workout improves your VO2, I assume they feel like it is similar to training at altitude or something, basically with you are training with limited oxygen. I am not sure if this is true, but I know for a fact that every time I do a flip turn and come up I do feel a little short of breath. When I am able to grab the wall it is kind of like a little breather and makes the set much easier. Another benefit for triathletes is when swimming in waves or open water sometimes you may miss a breath or two, flip turns kind of help "mimic" this situation, causing the swimmer to go a bit longer with without breathing What most coaches suggest to beginner swimmers triathletes is to flip during the warm up and during any sets shorter than 100 yards. So, if you are doing a 200 or 300 yard then flip every length. If you are doing 100 yard intervals, maybe flip turn every other length of the pool. They say practice makes perfect and I am sure within a few workouts you'll be feeling like a pro. If not just be patient and stick with it. It may take some time but you'll be into the groove.
