Breathing on flipturns

I'm a long way from being a great swimmer but I did manage to teach myself to do flip turns in the off season last winter.

I struggled for quite a while with them as well, especially on longer sets where I'd inhale water and end up gasping for air or just be so winded I couldn't put effort into swimming because I needed the whole lap just to regain my composure.

Time was a big factor. For longer sets I would just do flip turns until I felt I couldn't any more and just switched to open turns to finish out the yardage. That way I didn't feel like I was sacrificing my total yardage for something that wasn't directly tri related. I definitely suffered through a few weeks of inhaling a lot of extra water during my workout. Eventually I hit a point where I suddenly realized I swam an 800 doing flip turns the whole way and didn't drink half the pool in the process. In a way it was a lot like learning to swim. There was a bit of a steep learning curve to start but at some point it just clicked and became much easier.


A couple tricks that seemed to help me out:

I hold my breath until I kick over and the crunching motion forces the air naturally out of my stomach instead of breathing out right away like I normally would after breathing in. This helps keep air in the lungs so I don't get the empty lung gasping feeling before I'm finished with the turn and ready to breathe. Exhaling at this point also keeps water from going up the nose while upside down doing the turn. I also breathe left twice after every turn regardless of the breathing pattern I'm using the rest of the set to make sure I don't end up in oxygen debt after a few lengths.

Really, you "just" need to save your breath for a bit longer than usual, this may be hard(er) if you're used to breathe every 2 strokes. It can be good to practice breathing to either side if you don't do that yet.

Take a breath on the second last stroke before the wall, and hold your breath (the last stroke you use to drive the flip), do not breathe out as you usually would. As you do the flip, crunch over, breathe out slowly through the nose to avoid getting water in the nose. You really don't need to breathe out all your air to keep water from getting in the nose. Get in streamline position and push off, you'll be on your back when you push off, then as you push off you start turning, ready to take a first stroke then breathe on the second.

If you breathe with the diaphragm then you might loose a lot of air when you crunch over, if you breathe with the chest you can keep it more easily.

I recall my coach had us practice a push off getting beyond the 5m mark and take three strokes before the first breath, now I don't care so much about that.

Since you didn't mention it, I am wondering if you started learning the turn while swimming fast or slow? its easier to do the turns when you are swimming very slowly.

I disagree, when you are moving faster, you carry some momentum into the turn making it easier to "flip" than "roll", but I will say that getting the proper motion of a flip turn does not require you to be moving forward at all.

To the OP: Flipping turns is as much a training tool as it is an efficient way to make a turn. You will need to be able to hold your breath for a bit longer than usual. I agree with above comment that this might be really difficult if you are used to a every 2 stroke breathing pattern. I will admit that when doing a lot of speed work and needing to breathe more often, flipping turns gets more challenging. You don't have the most common problem: getting water up your nose, you must have learned to expel some air out your nose during the turn (or are using nose plugs). Just keep at it, it will come with more training.

You swim slow as to save breath. If you huffing along you won't be able to hold your breath as long. Like the rest of your swim stroke, learning the proper technique is important to execute one in the most efficient way. You don't learn to swim fast until after you know how to swim slowly and effortlessly.

As for the turn it doesnt matter what speed you travel down the lane because your last stroke into the turn would be done at the same force as a sprint which generates the initial momentum. The rest of the flip is core/hips.

Wow, thanks for all the tips. This is a great forum.

So it sounds like part of the answer is to hold the breath going into the turn rather than continuously exhaling like normal. Got it. That'll take some getting used to, but I'm willing to try anything at this point to address the problem.

And if I'm reading the posts correctly, it also sounds like there's some conditioning involved learning to operate efficiently on less oxygen. Am I reading that correctly? If so, I guess it's just going to take time. Right now I start out with bilateral breathing, but by the time my heart rate gets into the high 150's / low 160's, I have no choice but to flip to every other stroke. The goal of course is bilateral breathing and doing the turns with a glide and 2 strokes post glide before the breath, but I feel like I'm asphyxiating just thinking about it!