Flip turns...yes or no? (Page 2)

No I do not do flip turns, but I also do not swim that much, maybe once a week now.

I have progressed from grabing the wall to doing, I think it is called an "open turn". I try not to push off from the wall because I concider that cheating. Of course i am so inefficiant at the whole thing that my swim times in triathlons are significantly faster than my swim times in the pool. My 4k time in the pool was an hour forty, while my IM swim was 67 minutes.

I have recently started swimming legnths during open pool time, it used to be that they gave the swimmers a lane during that time but they stopped. The pool is not that crowded but I have found, the couple times that I have done it, that it gives me tons of practice sighting.

Do your races usually have ows or pool swims?  If they are pool swims then I would be doing flip turns.  I would do what is safe and in between sets or at a stopping point, ask them to give you more room.

Me too, and personally, I am thrilled about it! PS: I thought I was the only one who was like this!

Edited by keyone 2008-10-23 6:26 PM

I guess I should count my blessings. Now that summer is over and school is in session, I use the high school pool in the district I work on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 5:30 AM. I have to get up at 4:20 AM but I have the routine down. It is an 8 lane pool that is set to yards in the winter and meters in the summer. My morning swims only cost $2, and on average there are usually 4 or 5 of us at the pool, so no crowds or people in your lane.

I only just started working on flip turns and have abandoned the open turns, even though I think I'm faster w/ the open turns, and my flips are really 'not so hot' right now. Though I was doing 2000 yards w/the open turns, I'm down to 1300-1500 yards. The flip turns are adding another dimension of 'work' to my workouts. With the open turns I was able to streamline better, and now I think I'm a physiological wreck with my tail end dragging, etc., due to the flips. I guess I'm not recovering very from the flip. I have talked to some 'real' swimmers, and they say how fast their flips are...'SNAP'...and how they use the flip as a break or rest period. Hell, that's no break for me. And the other day I lost the ability to do even a bad lfip turn; I pulled sideways on EVERY flip turn somewhere after 500 yards of so. Don;t know what happened there. At least today I was back to my ugly and funny but non-flipping-to-the-side flip turns.

I signed up for a mini swim workshop at the local Y that's geared towards triathletes and fitness swimmers. Just got an email encouraging people to sign up for this because only one person so far has signed up and paid. Gee...guess who that is?

Swimming was, and still is, a challenge for me. But I did break the 25 yard barrier. Now I need to get the form, and I will try to master the flip turn. I feel it's part of the whole swimming package and needs to be accomplished.

Yes.

Flip turns for me unless I am exhausted. When I am doing speed work I will come up at the wall, but I always feel bad after doing it!

I don't do flip turns. If I had to for races, I'd practice it. Just touch and go.

While I agree with others that it's just so much nicer doing flip turns from a rhythm standpoint, one of the best swim coaches in the world has his people doing 25's on short rest. So no, no big loss from a fitness standpoint.