Howdy Swim fans! Here is another episode of whiteboard Wednesday and on today's episode
we're talking about the freestyle flip turn we're gonna talk about why the freestyle flip turn is so
important to swimming and some tips and tricks that you can use along the way to improve this
skill without further ado we first need to understand what is a flip turn in the first
place to put a definition behind a flip turn it's simply the process of changing direction
at the wall to keep continuously swimming now this is applied in our crawl stroke so this is
freestyle and backstroke along with kicking so if you kick and streamline on your back this allows
you to continuously move through a set without having to stop take a breath at the wall and
then push off again it's one continuous motion and if you understand why this is so important
you'll get some context as to why we do it so we do this because it's faster if you think about
taking a break by grabbing the wall breathing and then pushing off the act of doing a somersault
is actually much much faster this also is not only more efficient but it allows you to build
endurance because if you think about it if you're swimming say 200 meters in a short course pool at
25 meters long if you have to stop seven times in the course of that 200 it doesn't seem like
a lot but over the course of a longer distance this actually adds up to a lot so if you're a
triathlete and you're not interested in doing a flip turn because you don't think it's going to
matter it'll actually improve your overall fitness level and allow you to train at a much higher
level because you're eliminating all these small gaps that interrupt your swim whether it's every
25 or 50 meters so to have uninterrupted swimming is super super important now the five-step process
if you're not familiar with doing a flip turn and you've never done one in your entire life that's
totally okay we're gonna learn the five-step process so you can master a flip turn in just
minutes now the first step is mastering a standing somersault so the key to doing a flip turn
is being able to do a somersault and the way you start learning this is not at the wall we separate
ourselves from the wall we find an open area in the lane at the edge of the pool so that you can
stand and you actually practice doing a somersault from a standing position so the way this works is
you're actually simply standing vertical with your face looking directly in front of directly
what's in front of you you use either one or both hands to push off in the air and you want to get
comfortable using your hands to initiate the rotation so that your entire body can flip so
step one is the standing somersault where you lead with either two hands or with one hand one hand is
a little bit harder two hands a little bit easier to get to momentum and you flip straight over the
top meaning your feet follow your hands follow your head your chin is tucked in and you want to
get your body in as small of a ball as possible so that your rotation is faster so the key is having
a small ball and your goal is to be able to do an entire flip out of the water now the whole point
of doing this drill even though you're not going to have a push off the bottom of the pool when
you do a flip turn is to get your body used to flipping with speed with the assistance of one
or both of your hands so that way when you're horizontal which is step two you can apply this
at the wall now step two you're still not at the wall you're floating in the in the surface area of
the water you're away from the wall and you're gonna focus on doing a somersault while you're
horizontal on your stomach and what you're gonna do is you're gonna take three strokes freestyle
and on the third stroke your arm is going to pull you in and lead you into the flip just like you
were practicing when you were standing vertical so you take your three strokes and on the third
stroke you use that final pull to leverage you and tuck your trim into a really really tight
ball and you do a somersault where you finish after 360 degrees of rotation you're going to be
right where you started and then you take three more strokes and the goal of taking only three
strokes is that you want to practice pulling yourself in on both arms so you practice with
your right arm take three strokes and then you practice with your left arm because when you're
swimming in the pool you don't know what wall what arm you're going to approach the wall could
be your right it could be your left and the key is carrying momentum through the pull you don't
want to take your three strokes stop and then pull you want to use the speed that you have swimming
similar to when you were pushing off the bottom to leverage that speed and then use that momentum
to carry you into a really really tight ball so once you've mastered the standing somersault and
the horizontal somersault and you're able to flip your body 100% 360 degrees feet over heels over
the water straight away you're not rotating onto the side then you're ready for step number three
and I should back up on step one and two it's really important that you're comfortable blowing
bubbles out of your nose a big challenge a lot of swimmers have is they get water up their nose you
have to be comfortable sort of with a humming sensation so it helps you just go underwater
and relax and just hum and get that feeling of pushing out air through your nose because that's
what you're gonna need to do when you when you flip you're gonna need to blow out your nose and
the more you do it the more control that's going to get and the easier it's going to be for you so
step three is actually applying this concept of doing a somersault after three strokes at
the wall so you're gonna practice approaching the wall with freestyle and when you're about
one arms-length away from the wall you're going to initiate your flip but nothing is different
than what you did when you were horizontal so you take your three strokes and then you're
at the wall your fingertips are right at the edge of the wall and you're going to initiate the pull
that'll get you into the flip and you want to be in a really tight ball just because the wall is
there doesn't mean you actually change any of the mechanics you did in steps one or step two so step
three is doing the somersault at the wall and you you want to finish this step step three with your
feet being lined up six to 12 inches or less than half a meter underneath the surface of the water
your toes should be pointing to the sky to the top of the water and your body should be in a position
like this image right here where you're ready to push off the wall and if you look at this image
you can see the swimmers feet are about six to 12 inches underneath the surface of the water their
body is compact and they're arms are already in the pit streamline position the great thing about
doing a flip turn a somersault flip turn with freestyle specifically is that after you do the
pull your hands and your arms are already in a streamline position so that all you'll have to
do is push off so once you've accomplished step three step four is actually pushing off the wall
so you're going to approach the wall you're going to take your last stroke that's gonna pull you in
for the pull for the flip you're gonna be in this position with your feet and your toes pointing to
the top of the water you're in a streamline you should be able to see through the water and look
at the ceiling or the sky if you're in an outdoor pool and then you're actually going to push off on
your back and you're going to streamline kick the only time we actually rotate onto our stomach is
once we've actually left the wall so that's step 5 if you notice the first four steps do not involve
any rotation laterally you're just going to do the somersault as you approach the wall and at the end
of step four you're going to be in this position where essentially your body is flat underneath the
water and your legs are compact and your body is in a position where all you have to do is push off
the wall and then as you push off the wall that is when you begin the rotation so step 5 is rotation
after the push off so the key is as you're pushing off the wall you begin that rotation but you don't
want to rotate while you're at the wall a lot of people make the mistake of rotating on step
3 so as you're doing the flip you're rotating so that's just a waste of time if you were gonna do
that you may as well just grab the top of the wall get your breath and then push off the wall so it's
really important that you only push off and then you rotate don't mix them up together so step 5
is initiate the rotation rotate while pushing off the wall and you want to kick in streamline either
a freestyle kick or a dolphin kick to get you back onto your stomach so that you can continue
swimming for the next length now it seems a lot but if you break it down into these five steps
and you isolate learning each skill you'll be a flip turn in no time now here's a few tips along
the way that you want to think about as you're working through each of these steps and even if
you already have a solid flip turn you can always work on improving each of these different elements
even world-class swimmers can work on their flip turns to refine them and make them even better
so the first tip is to be in a small ball on the actual rotation so as you're doing the somersault
you want to be as compact as smaller as it's possible the smaller your body is and the less
space you occupy the less resistance you have through the water as you're rotating as you're
doing the somersault and as a result because water is 800 times more dense than air because you're
smaller and you occupy less surface area you have less resistance and you'll be able to do that much
much more quickly the next tip is to approach the wall with speed so you don't want to glide into
the wall which is the third pointer don't glide into the wall stop and then do the flip turn if
you think about in tennis a ball moving quickly into the tennis racket will move quickly off of
the tennis racket if you throw a ball at the wall very quickly it's going to come off the wall just
as fast as you threw it if you throw a ball very lightly at the at the wall it's not going to come
back very fast the same concept applies with your body as it's moving into the wall you want to
carry as much momentum as possible momentum is equal to mass times velocity you can't control
your mass because you already weigh as much as you weight but you can control your speed so you want
to enter this speed into the wall with a lot of speed carry the momentum through the wall don't
glide and don't lift your head as you go into the wall so a lot of swimmers do the mistake of they
come into the wall they get a big breath and then they flip you get a lot of oxygen but you
slow down all of your speed and you make it a lot harder to actually carry momentum into the turn
because you took that oxygen finally don't you want to use the T on the bottom of the pool so
if you notice on most pools there's a black line with a T at the end now the T is about five feet
or just under two meters away from the edge of the wall so you actually don't even need to lift your
head up you can get comfortable looking at the T on the bottom of the pool and the T will let you
know that the wall is coming and that's when you can your final stroke and pull everyone's a little
bit different in terms of how far they flip turn and it matters based on how fast you're going as
well so the faster you go you're gonna approach the wall with more speed you're gonna have to
refactor how fast you're gonna do the flip when you see the T you also want to make sure you're
pushing off on your back so this tip is really key for making sure you're not rotating onto your
stomach while you're at the wall another tip is don't breathe on the breakout stroke so you push
off the wall in streamline you have great kicks but you need oxygen you need air I empathize with
you however it's going to slow you down because you have the most speed when you push off the wall
if you take a breath you're actually gonna slow yourself down so it's hard at the beginning but as
you aerobic Li condition your body not breathing on the break out stroke will become much much
easier and if you're competing and you're going to a race you need to make sure you can do that
without taking a breath because you'll lose most of your speed off of the turn and off of this push
if you take a breath also practice doing this flip turn with multiple arms so meaning one arm at a
time so maybe you go into the wall with your right arm but the next time you'll approach the wall
it'll be with your left arm so you want to make sure you're practicing with both arms and that's
why the drill of three strokes and then doing a flip will help you learn how to use each arm to
pull you into the flip turn and the final tip is practice practice practice in elite swimmer will
do over half a million flip turns in the course of just one season so if you look at swimmers
who have been doing this in entire life they've practiced millions upon millions of flipped turns
and as a result they have a pretty good idea of what's going on at the same time it can be really
hard to improve your flip turn because you're so used to doing something in a certain way so doing
these drills and doing these tips will really help you improve because it's something that you're
going to do over and over and over again finally I want to talk about a few different drills that you
can do that really will help you isolate these tips and skills so you can be better at a flip
turn the first drill is the three strokes plus a we talked about over here so you take your three
strokes and then you're going to flip you can do this as a set of 20 5s or 50s or even 100's
just make sure you don't do it too much so that way you don't get too dizzy doing all of those
flips another skill that you can work on with the flip is the actual flip part and getting your body
comfortable flipping straight over the top so if you're flipping over sideways this drill with a
lane marker and essentially doing a flip over the lane marker will help you focus on flipping
straight over the top and not over to your side so the way that works is you've grabbed the lane
marker and the lifeguard may not like this at your pool but if you tell them it's a drill they might
let you do it and you grab the lane marker and you literally pull yourself over the lane line and you
want to get your body compressed and curling over the lane line so you get the feeling of
flipping straight over the top the next drill is my favorite it's where you use to kick boards and
you kick you approach the wall kicking on your stomach with both arms extended and as you get
to the point where the kick boards are about to touch the wall you separate your arms out and you
flip on to the wall and then you push off on your back and rotate so you do the complete flip turn
without using your arms what this drill does is it really slows you down it isolates using your core
to generate power on the flip and it doesn't let your hands get too occupied with what they could
be doing underneath the water as you're flipping so this really isolates a few different elements
and it's one of my favorite drills finally you can do sets where you go freestyle backstroke where
you focus on pushing off your back on your back so similar to step number 4 where you push off
on your back where you do freestyle freestyle you can do 50s where you go freestyle on the way down
and then a 25 backstroke and it forces you to swim for yourself flip turn find this position and then
push off on your back and then you stay on your back and you swim backstroke this is a fantastic
drill that you can do a lot of distance where you really get to focus on pushing off on your back
and then once you translate that into swimming freestyle you can push off of your back I'm going
to be more confident doing your freestyle kick or your dolphin kicks off the wall that you can
on here stomach so that's all we have for today's whiteboard Wednesday if you have any other tips
for questions about mastering the freestyle flip turn please let us know in the comments
below we look forward to you next time this was whiteboard Wednesday we'll see you guys later bye