It doesn't matter if you do flip turns or open turns, but what I will contend is that triathletes should do streamlined pushes off the walls when training in a pool.
Why? Because drag reduction is the number one thing that will improve your performance, adn maintaining a streamlined shape while in the motion of swimmign is very, very difficult to do...ESPECIALLY if you don't touch the wall or if you pushoff the wall like a granny who doesn't want to get her hair wet
(OK, exaggeration there...
)
By starting every length in the best streamline you can achieve you have several moments to kinesthetically feel what it's like to be Michael Phelps or Sara McClarty. No, i'm not exaggerating here. NExt time you push off the wall, close your eyes, exend your arms infront of you, hands clasped over each other, biceps against hte side of your head, look down at the bottom of the pool, gluts squeezed together, knees and ankles touching and the toes of one foot stacked over the top of the other foot. You are a torpedo in the water.
Now FEEL the water rolling off your body all along it's lenght...your fingers, palms, forarms, the tickly inner side of your bicep, your shoulder blades, your lats your low back, your hips, your thighs, calves and finally off the tips of your toes....
When you break the surface still horizontal and begin swimming...focus on holding any ONE of those sensations as you swim, even when swimming slowly.
Do this with every turn for the next week and tell me if you don't improve your overall form just by kinesthetic feedback alone.
Edited by AdventureBear 2011-04-10 1:26 PM