2 Ways to Actually Master a Swimming Flip Turn

So many swimmers struggle to learn how to do a flip turn, and when they finally end up being able to do it, they're usually doing it totally wrong. So I'm going to show you two drills today that are going to help you master your flip turn and really tighten up that technique so that your flip turns are fast and efficient. What does a good flip turn look like? So the anatomy of a flip turn, basically you come into the wall and you don't slow down into the wall. You kind of maintain that momentum, you flip straight over so you land on the wall looking straight up at the sky or the ceiling. Your hands stay tight to your body at all times during your flip, and when you push off the wall, you push off in a perfect streamline. Okay, so that's what a good flip turn is supposed to be. Now let's talk about what some of you guys are doing. A lot of people, when they come in for a flip turn in freestyle, they don't flip straight over. They kind of turn their body as they flip, which we just don't want to be doing that. You're not going to land on the wall in a very powerful stance. When you flip straight over, you basically land on the wall in like a squat position, kind of like you're sitting in a little chair. So you want to think about flipping straight over and not like trying to turn your body as you flip. That's just not very efficient. So that's mistake number one. Mistake number two that I see a lot of people do is they kind of like flail their arms out to kind of help flip their body over, and when you think about it, when your arms are out here and you're on the wall, you have a long way to go before you get your hands into streamline to push off. And that's taken up a lot of time in your race or your workout, and you're going to be very tired because you're just going to be sitting underwater, holding your breath, trying to get yourself into streamline. So instead, we want to keep our hands nice and tight. And so usually what that means, and I'm going to show you a drill for this today, is when you flip, you want to come into the wall, take your last stroke, and your hands should actually kind of be by your sides so that when you flip, you can use your hands to help power you over like this, like that, instead of like this. So you're basically doing like a little bicep curl to help yourself get over, and then when you land on the wall, your hands are going to be like up by your face, which means all you have to do to get to streamline is that, which is way better and faster and more comfortable for you. So we want to focus on those two things today, and now I'm going to share two drills that are going to help you improve those things. Okay, so the first drill we're going to do today is basically like doing a flip turn throughout a 25. So what you're going to do is you're going to swim a 25, and every five strokes, you're going to do a flip. So you're not going to be at the wall, but that's actually okay. So we want to just focus on getting comfortable with the flipping motion. So what you want to do in this drill, you're just going to swim, swim, swim, you'll take your last stroke, arms are together, and then you'll do a slight dolphin kick to flip yourself over, and then you'll kind of make yourself do a fall 360 and then get back to swimming. So you'll be a little slow at that point, but that's totally fine. What we're focused on here is maintaining momentum into the turn, so we're not slowing down and just kind of practicing the flipping. Okay, our second drill is for those of you who have a really hard time with keeping the arms tight, you're doing one of these. So you're going to need two kickboards for this, and what we're going to do is basically you're going to start floating on your stomach, holding the kickboards with your hands by your sides, and you're just going to be looking straight down, and you're going to be kicking, kicking, kicking for a little bit, and then you're going to do your flip turn, and you're going to, these kickboards are going to force you to like keep your arms in tight. So you're going to flip, and by the end of the flip, the kickboard should be like this, right by your shoulders. So this is going to kind of help teach you and get you get that muscle memory for the right hand position in your flip turns and help you think about pushing your hands like this instead of flailing like that. Let's try it! Okay, so now we are going to do a quick drill set to kind of put these drills into practice and help you learn how to do a flip turn properly. So before you start this set, I recommend spending about five minutes playing around with that kickboard drill, maybe do five to ten of them, work on proper hand positioning before we get into the set. So this actual set we're going to be doing is pretty short, it's four 25s, and we're going to be doing those mid pool flips. So during these 25s, you're going to do a flip every five strokes. So focus on nice momentum into the turn, good tight technique, flipping straight over. If you want, you can kind of pause at the bottom to make sure, am I looking up at the sky at the end of my turn, or am I flipped around looking at the side of the pool? You want to be looking straight up, and then you'll get yourself back into your freestyle. Let's do it! The drills I'm showing you today are great for people who are already pretty comfortable with a flip turn and just want to tighten up their technique and speed. I love this mid pool flip drill because you really have to focus on your momentum. If you flip too slowly, you're going to have a really hard time getting back to swimming freestyle when you're in the middle of the pool and you have nothing to push off of. Working on your turns can make a huge difference in your overall speed and efficiency, so definitely take the time to put in the work now and build that muscle memory with these drills. Your future self will thank you. All right, and that is it. A couple pro tips for you to keep improving your flip turns. The first thing is to practice them. If you're learning a flip turn and you get really tired when you do them and you have trouble holding your breath, just give it time and know that you will get better. Flip turns are hard and you might want to avoid doing them if you're tired, but make it a focus if you want to get better. It will help improve your speed, it will improve the amount of yardage you're going to be able to do in your workouts, and especially if you're going to compete, flip turns are your friends. So keep at it, work on these drills every practice if you want to, and you'll improve. A couple more technique tips. One, try not to breathe right into the turn and try not to breathe right off the turn. Some people say that you should not breathe from the flags to the wall. Basically, just don't breathe and then flip, but don't want to do that. And then try to take two or three strokes before you breathe off the turn. The second pro tip for you is it's very, very tempting to want to look forward at the wall before you flip to make sure you're in the right place, but you actually want to try to keep your head down. So that's what the T on the bottom of the pool is for. The more you practice your flip turn, you'll get comfortable and know how far far away you are from the wall. So try to keep your head in that neutral position so that you don't have as far to go when you tuck, because if you look forward, then you have to go all the way down. Just keep it neutral, look straight down, and trust that you're not going to hit the wall because none of us are going fast enough to actually hurt ourselves if we hit the wall. So don't worry about it. It's okay. Thank you so much for watching this video. I hope you found these drills for your flip turn helpful. If you want more tips and tricks and workouts, definitely download the My Swim Pro app and give our workouts a shot. I think they will really help you improve your technique. If you want more videos like this one, please subscribe to our channel and like this video. If you want more tips and tricks about how to improve your technique, definitely check out more videos on our channel. I think you guys will really like our video about how to improve your freestyle pull. Thank you so much for watching and happy swimming.