Welcome to whiteboard Wednesday and on today's episode we're gonna show you five steps how you
can master the open turn that's breaststroke and butterfly and in the IM if you're looking
at how to learn how to do a freestyle flip turn where you do a somersault make sure you check
out our instructional video whiteboard Wednesday linked in the description below this video we're
talking about the open turn right what is the open turn it's where you change directions at
the wall when you're doing a short axis stroke or the individual medley so you're not doing
a somersault you're touching the wall with two hands breaststroke and butterfly so this actually
happens in a number of different competitive events not only from breaststroke to breaststroke
but also butterfly - butterfly in the individual medley when you go from butterfly to backstroke as
well as from breaststroke to freestyle so there's five steps and we're gonna walk through them step
by step the first step in doing an open turn is to touch with two hands in breaststroke and
butterfly according to the rules of swimming it is required that you touch both hands simultaneously
at the wall unlike freestyle and backstroke where you have a one-hand finish or you can touch with
the wall and then turn around with only one hand in breaststroke and butterfly you have to finish
to the wall in two hands so that's how we approach the wall with a two-hand touch it's required and
make sure you're touching underneath the surface of the water when you're just learning how to do
in open water turn it's okay to get used to grabbing the top of the wall but you don't
want to get too comfortable and used to that because it'll actually slow you down and we'll
talk about that a little bit later so it's first step to hand touch right under the surface of the
wall under the surface of the water and step two and three actually happen almost at the same time
step two is to bring your knees into your chest so your body is essentially flat on top of the
water with two hands touching the wall and you're gonna bring your knees are gonna activate your
court you're gonna bring your knees into the wall at the same time you're gonna drop your elbow to
the side and it depends on your preference if you drop your right arm or your left arm but you're
gonna drop your elbow to the side opening up your chest make sure to keep your body compact and low
to the water so you're bringing your knees to your chest and you're dropping your elbow at the
same time step two and three are about at the same time and an easy way to remember this is knees to
the chest and then you elbow your brother next up and then you're gonna call your mother so the goal
here is to keep your body as low to the surface of the water and not pull your body up towards the
wall that's why grabbing the wall can actually be a bad habit because it can actually encourage you
to pull yourself to the wall if you want to have a really fast open turn you actually want to stay
far away from the wall so as you drop your elbow back to open your chest and you elbow your brother
your opposite arm should actually remain straight and flat on the water as straight as possible and
then once your body is sinking back you're gonna call your mother and you're gonna bring your L
you're gonna bend your arm and bring your hand to the opposite hand so that you can eventually meet
in streamline now it's really important that when you touch the wall with two hands and you drop
that one elbow down to elbow your brother you keep the opposite arm straight and flat at the
wall so that way your body doesn't drift in too close or fall off of the wall a big mistake a lot
of swimmers make is they touch the wall with two hands and then they turn their entire body at the
wall and then push off right that's really really slow you're trying to make your body as compact
as possible at the wall and you then by two hand touch elbow your brother call your mother and then
you push off in streamline when you connect your hands together and you actually push off on your
side and you carry that momentum to rotate back onto your stomach you don't need to touch the wall
with two hands do a full hundred and eighty degree rotation touch to streamline and then push off
you want to teach your body to be really really compact and really small in the water okay so once
we've nailed the five steps on how to do in open water and open turn there's a few tips that we
want to keep in mind so let's keep it simple it's really easy to over complicate this process if you
see a swimmer do this that's really really fast it looks really intimidating because so many things
are going on at the same time what they're really doing is this five-step process just really really
efficiently you can actually break it down to only three steps if you think about it step one is the
two-hand touch step two is to elbow your brother and then step three is to call your mother right
step one two-hand touch elbow your brother call your mother right it's only three steps keep it
simple don't over complicate it the next tip is to stay low in the water and away from the wall
you've already touched the wall you don't need to swim any extra to get to the wall to take a
bigger breath right stay low to the water keep your chin right on the surface and you really
shouldn't rotate on to your side the whole point of bringing your knees to your chest and then
dropping your elbow back is to open up your chest but you're not turning your body right keep your
head looking at the wall your chin should be right on the surface of the water and as you
sink back you should actually see your hand come back towards your face as if you're calling your
mother right never forget to call your mother the next tip is to practice not grabbing the wall we
talked about this you don't want to grab the wall it's a bad habit when you're just learning it can
help you get support of practicing on the wall and really get that leverage but the more accomplished
swimmer you become and the more experienced you get at doing an open turns for breaststroke and
butterfly you want to train your body not to grab the wall in fact a lot of pools around the world
don't even have a wall to grab and if you look at an international competition like the FINA
World Championships or the Olympics the touch pad takes up the entire wall and actually goes above
the water so there actually isn't anything to even grab onto you have to touch the wall right
under the surface of the water and really focus on using your momentum into the wall to push you out
of the wall and that's the next step use momentum speed right so when you're learning you don't
have to go so fast you can break it down float on the wall practice dropping your elbow down
bring your knees into the wall but the faster you get and the more accomplished swimmer you
become you learn to leverage the wall as a speed acceleration tool right so the fastest you'll
ever swim is when you push off the wall so make sure you don't slow down and decelerate coming
into the wall you want to be into the wall fast out of the wall fast really push off the wall a
lot of power and hold your streamline and the way you can do that is by entering the wall entering
the turn with as much speed as possible and then using the wall to canna pull you and launch you
off into the next length of your race now there are a few drills that you can do to practice the
open water turn the first drill is simply doing the floating open turn right so you can do this
two ways the easier way is you float right at the surface of the wall and you practice while
you're floating and your arms are at the wall you practice just doing the turn basically step
two through five so you're already at the wall touching with two hands and then you bring your
knees in drop the elbow call the mother and then push off in streamline it's a really explosive
movement and you can practice that at the wall you can also practice that just floating in the middle
of the lane with absolutely no momentum and if you can get yourself used to doing the turn with
zero momentum while you float on top of the water when you do it with momentum and you actually have
the wall to leverage you're gonna feel a lot more confident and a lot faster it's a little bit more
advanced drill there's also a breath control drill where you can instead of doing a turn
that's open you can do a somersault at the wall if you're doing breaststroke or butterfly and
while this doesn't actually practice the mechanics of the turn itself it teaches you how to go into
oxygen debt and get used to that feeling of not having a lot of air so that way when you do get
to doing an open turn you're not dependent on the air that you need to breathe and you can go right
into the pullout or the underwater dolphin kick without a lot of oxygen so that's a little bit
more advanced drill you can do breaststroke into the wall do a somersault push off do the pullout
you know teach your body how to swim and how to do that break out without having a lot of oxygen
and not waste a lot of time breathing on the wall you're allowed to breathe when you do a two-hand
touch you're allowed to breathe and breast and butterfly but you don't want to waste too much
time sitting at the wall taking a huge breath in you want to go right into the next into the next
turn and finally you can practice turning on your non-dominant side meaning if you get comfortable
turning onto your right side or onto your left side that's okay you'll get a lot better at it
and that'll be the turning side that you'll use race and when you're fatigued but you can work on
the mechanics and really engage your mind in the process of doing an open water turn by turning
onto your non-dominant side it's really gonna make you think about what you're doing and you
won't get lazy because you actually have to think about the mechanics of okay touch with two hands
drop your elbow bring your knees in call the mother and then push off and streamline and by
doing it on your non-dominant side you'll engage your mind in a way that you weren't able to do
that by doing it on the side that you're most used to so that's a quick overcut overview of how you
can do an open turn for breaststroke and butterfly and the individual medley it's a simple five-step
process don't make it more complicated than you need to two-hand touch elbow your brother call
your mother into streamline if you have any more questions make sure you leave them in the comments
of this video also check out how to do a freestyle somersault flip turn for freestyle and backstroke
also linked in the descriptions and until next time I wish you the best and happy swimming bye