Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Question of the Day

1. Do you do flip-turns when swimming in the pool?
2. How? (I always get water up my nose!)

I started learning flip-turns and began practicing away. It made me very tired, I kept getting water up my nose, and it totally slowed me down. Eventually, I just gave up. My excuse for not learning flip-turns? It takes too much time away from training. By the time I learn how to do them effectively enough so that it actually makes my lap swimming faster, I'll be doing all open water triathlons. So the only time I would be doing flip turns is in practice. How does that help me on race day? Then, I'd have to swim extra laps to compensate for the boost I get from doing the flip-turns and pushing off the wall (curiously absent in the ocean). So, I look like a doofus at the pool. I'm curious to hear how other people do it.

3 comments:

Cliff said...

I don't do flip turns..i am already having trouble learning not to sink. :)

My coach teach us to keep a constant pressure blowing out your nose. My pool has rules that warn us not to do it..but i ignore..so yeah my snots are all over the community pool.

diebenkorn said...

try to exhale through your mouth and nose the entire time you do the flip turn. remember to actually flip before you flip onto your stomach. even though i was on the shs swim team, this is one skill i didn't perfect when i was there. nick had to teach me how to do it the right way last year.

bari said...

What they said -- keep breathing out your nose. Now if someone can tell me how to avoid swimming into the person who is drafting off of you, I might actually do flip turns more often.