Favorite Drills
Video Transcription: Here are some of my favorite drills to work on Flipturns, plants, and push offs.
Two turn 25s. What that means is you’re going to have a swimmer push off the wall to do a singular lap. In the middle of the pool, they’re going to do a Somersault and then keep on swimming. Then when they get to the other end, they’re going to Flipturn like they would normally and Push-off to about the flags. And then they go back to that respective wall that they just finished at and they restart it again.
The purpose of that is just to complete a few more turns in a 25 than you would normally. Usually you would have no turns in a 25, this just gives them more options of working on Flipturns. Also keeping the body moving, especially through that one in the middle is important because you flip and you flip back over to your stomach, you can keep on swimming as you go into the second turn of that 25.
You also have middle of the pool 50s. A swimmer can be set up in the middle of the pool. They swim in towards the wall and then away from that wall and then they meet back into the middle. This way you get two turns for a 50 versus your one regular turn.
Wall kicks to Flipturns. This is where you could kick on a wall in a different combination of kicks, and then on a “Go” or your whistle, you can have them go into a Flipturn. You could also do that with having them do a kick combination and then pushing their body backwards into a Flipturn. You can get pretty creative there with the combination in the amount of time to get a swimmer to react to what is going on.
Hesitation Flipturns are the words I use for Flipturns where you go into the wall and you actually flip and plant, but you pause for a second and you assess how you planted, what it looks like, etc. Then from there you push off. They’re slower and more intentional thought out turns to make sure that you’re pushing off really well. What’s the back angle look like? What’s the fingertips look like? So you have a really nice, repeatable turn.
Dead start Flipturns are Flipturns where you’re at different distances from the wall. You start doing different things depending on what your coach says. You could be kicking. You could be sculling. You could be swimming, but the purpose is to react and then sprint to the wall from whatever distance you’re at and have a really wonderful Flipturn.
Jumping Flipturns are in the shallow part of the pool. You’re going to move away from the wall. You’ll be a little bit in front of the flags, but it depends on a swimmer’s height. They’re going to jump towards the wall, into a Flipturn, and then swim on out. These are super fun. Just make sure that the distance is safe for the swimmers that you’re working with. They’re literally going to broad jump towards the wall, flip really fast and then push off.
The last drill I really like is teaching swimmers to swim in Freestyle and then push-off and do Backstroke. If you have swimmers that are really used to coming in on their stomach, coming in and pushing off on their stomach, or pushing off on their side, this is a really good way to kick them out of that because it will force them to plant differently. Once they fix the plant, then they have the option to do some different things for the Push-off.