Three Steps to Freestyle Flip Turns

If you’ve never learned to do a flip turn in freestyle or you need to improve your technique, you’ve come to the right place for fundamental help.

With a little practice and the right understanding, flip turns can become very easy. Over time, they become automatic as you complete dozens of them every time you swim.

The key when first learning or improving your flip turns is to break the freestyle flip turn into its three basic steps.

Step #1: Finish at Your Sides

The first step to a great freestyle flip turn is making sure you're finishing the last two strokes to the sides of your body. That means you must finish those last two strokes before the wall with your hands alongside either hip. This sets you up to initiate step #2.

Step #2: Initiate the Somersault

At the core of every freestyle flip turn is a tight somersault. By finishing with your hands by your hips, you’re ready to begin the somersaulting motions by simply dropping your head and tucking your chin towards you chest. Allow your body to follow where your head is aiming. Then, as your body begins to fold at the waist, flip your feet above your head, taking your body from a horizontal to a vertical position. From that position, you can launch into step #3.

Step #3: Push Off

As your feet continue in their arc above your head, aim them at the wall just above the painted plus sign (or about a foot below the surface of the water if your pool doesn’t have competition markings). Plant your feet firmly and tighten your arms into a tight streamline; from where your hands stopped by your hips in step #1, they should have moved very little, so achieving streamline is a simple matter of tightening up to be ready to go by the time your feet hit the wall. Put it All Together

In order to have a great flip turn you have to do steps one through three in the proper order consistently each time. It will take some practice, but before long, you’ll be blasting off like a pro.