Flip turns worth the energy/effort to learn? (Page 2)

Nope. No stop in a flip turn. If you watch the lead arm of a good swimmer going into a flip turn and out of it, IT NEVER STOPS.

Then watch the lead arm of a swimmer doing an open turn. It ALWAYS has to stop its motion at the wall.

It's like doing a U-turn with a car ... you can do the turn smoothly around (flip turn) and not have to slow down as much and get all that momentum to speed back up, OR you can stop at the turn (open turn) and have to get back up to speed going the other direction.

There is a slight slowing down with a flip turn, but there's never the inevitable dead stop like there is in open turns.

My opinion is that they are worth it.  It only takes a few sessions before you can do it adequately, so that's not a ton of effort to learn it.

My personal experience is that when I do an open turn, even though I never stop and I do it quickly, I can still get 2 quick breaths at the wall as I am turning around.  In open water, unless you're on your back, you'll never get more than one breath at a time.  Flip turns force you to pay even more attention to breathing and never lets you get more than 1 breath.  Therefore, I think it is, at least minimally, advantageous to open water training.

Yes, they do.  =)

So do you eat the saltine before or after each flip turn? You obviously don't want to bonk during the turn itself, so getting that 0.42 of a calorie down BEFORE the turn is probably smartest. So on a 3K swim in a 25yd pool, that is ~119 saltines. Seems reasonable and something to aim for. I wonder if there is a device to carry the saltines in to grab as you go by, because you wouldn't want to stop to pick one up (defeats the purpose of the flip turn).

Yup.

Also, a very good swimmer may or may not be the best swim/turn teacher. They might, but often someone who is good who once stunk (learned to swim as an adult and has some coaching cred) will be better because they understand the particular difficulties of trying to learn technique-based stuff as an adult.

There is a lot to consider, but I'd also look at what all the good swimmers and coaches are saying ... vs what those who are less experienced or accomplished in the water are saying. The lines are THAT clearly drawn, and I personally know which side I'd prefer to stay on.

A final note is that some people are going to suck at flip turns no matter what, but that's almost always due to vertigo or serious spatial awareness issues (especially when land gravity and perfectly clear sight are removed from the equation). For those people, it really may not be worth the inordinate amount of time they'd have to put in to learn flip turns vs. what they could spend just swimming. But if you haven't given it a good try, it's hard to say.

You should check out races before FINA changed the underwater rules.  Since the mid 90s, swimmers have to come up after 15 meters.  David Berkoff used to "Berkoff balast off" about 35 meters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oTlD6SuvNk

What are flip turns?

Side note.  I thought swimming should be fun, no?  When I see kids, they are always doing summersaults, rolls, handstands, etc.  I just see flip turns as a grownup version of summersaults/flips  They are just plain fun.  I do them to make a swim more enjoyable, if anything, and don't even worry if they are "good for me" or not (which, btw, I'm in the camp they are good).

I also often cool down with trying to see how far I can go underwater or practice my porpoising.  Any proven benifit - not sure.  I think it's just fun AND if you play, you get more comfortable in the water, so less likely to panic if something comes up in an OWS.

ETA:  Off to the pool for a lunchtime swim.  And going to do flipturns, BTW.

Super LOL.

What a great thread.  My two cents:  I'm a new swimmer and this time last year I couldn't make it 50 yards without pulling my head out of the water.  Got swim coaching, and last season touch turned as I learned how to swim - average workouts around 2000 yards. Finished last season with a half iron man and the swim was horrible, like 45 minutes, lots of doggie paddling and I wanted to pull out horrible.

This season I wanted to improve my open water swimming so I decided to teach myself flip turns.  Why? Because in open water, there are walls to take a breath on and flip turning makes you manage your breathing over the entire set.  I was cheating on my touch turns and grabbing extra air and the flip turns stop that right away.  How:  youtube videos and lots of water up my nose.  About a month in and I can manage a half decent turn and like others say, my breathing has improved along with my times.  Over very hard sets I struggle to do them, and I still gasp for air after the turn, but it's already paid dividends in the open water. 

Everyone's different but I vote for do them if you can, even if they aren't pretty.

Ok, now I have a new drill for this week!