Maintaining Velocity In Turns

I believe that maintaining velocity in swimming has to be one of the best ways to maintain efficiency.  Have someone time your turn speed it's done easily, start the stopwatch on start of your last pull then have them stop the stop watch once your feet leave the wall!  I have athletes that can do this in :00.66 seconds consistently!  I think shooting for being faster than 1 second would be a great start!

If you're training in a 25yd pool and swimming just 3000yds you are probably completing about 50+/- turns!  What if you could save a half second on each turn?  First let's talk about the turn, you have a "set-up" stage, then the "flip", then the "landing", and finally the "push"!

During the set-up most swimmers dive their last arm reach down towards the bottom of the pool starting their flip!  Now try this!  Swim a 25 and take 5 strokes of freestyle on your fifth stroke leave your arm extended and bring the other arm up (making the Superman position)!  Now do a simultaneous double arm pull and tuck your chin!  What just happened?  If you pulled hard and tucked your chin you should have submerged towards a flip!

Now when you flip it has to be a tight tuck!  Think about how tucked Olympic divers are, they tuck so they can flip faster or more times before they hit the water!  No longer do you want your legs to flop over, if they do you're just pushing water out of the way and that's resistance!

Now you're ready for the landing, when you swim into the wall, do your set-up, double arm pull and flip and now your feet should be on the wall with your toes pointed towards the sky!  So now you're on your back!  Now when you land you should think about going up for a rebound in basketball, with your feet atleast as wide as your shoulders!  You can jump a lot higher with your feet spread wider rather than together!

Lastly the push!  So now you've got your feet on the wall shoulder width apart and you're upside down!  Slide your arms up into your streamline, push and roll!  There's no rule on the freestyle turn that says you have to be on your stomach when you leave the wall, so why not just roll out of your turn with a few dolphin kicks!

(This gives room for thought about the IM transition turns from Fly to Back and Breast to Free!)

Try to break it down a bit before completing the whole turn!

1. 2 x 25 Freestyle w/ 5 strokes of freestyle (Superman, Double Arm Pull, Flip)

2. 2 x Turns (Freestyle in, Superman, Double Arm Pull, Flip, Land) Get your feet set!

3. 2 x Turns (Freestyle in, Superman, Double Arm Pull, Flip, Land, Push off on your back!)

4. 2 x Turns (Freestyle in, Superman, Double Arm Pull, Flip, Land, Push and Roll)

If you're interested in a video about fast turns try checking out the "Richard Quick / Milt Nelms Videos"!  Fast turns combined with fast underwater swimming is "essential"!