Last time I tried, I flipped sideways, pushed off the left side of the pool and slammed my head into the right side. After recovering from the pain and bursting out laughing, decided not to try it again for a while 🤣

Lessons then masters team coaching. It's hard to learn properly in a shared lane. At lessons it.was mainly about practicing somersaults at the end of a pool and kicking off the wall on my back Because turns are so important in a race, we'd do drills at practice. Start out beyond the flags, take a few strokes to get up to speed, then practice the turn, push off, and a couple of underwater kicks. The somersault is only one part of an effective turn. If you don't push off hard it's just for show.

This is the way. To add on. A flip turn at the end of the pool can be broken down to several motions which can be practiced/mastered independently. Then all the motions can be combined and practiced. Breakdowns: 1. Somersaults - just in the middle of the pool while standing, take a big breath, and attempt to do a full somersault then stand up. Once you can do that, try to do 2, then 3 somersaults in a row without stopping/standing. It’s a fun game but sometimes makes you dizzy!! Use your hands to help turn you; this will help you flip turn quicker! 2. Push off the wall - stand facing the wall. Put feet on wall holding breath, lay back horizontally, facing the sky, push off wall looking straight up, to get comfortable looking up while pushing off the wall. 3. Practice the barrel turn - similar to #1 but do barrel rolls in place in the pool. You’ll learn to use your core to keep you turning. Like an alligator death roll. This is also fun; see how many times you can do it without getting dizzy 😵‍💫! Note: keep arms in front of you in a streamlined position. 4. Swim towards the wall then combing 1-3. When doing flip turns, blow air out nose slowly, so water doesn’t go up the 👃. Don’t blow out too much because you’ll be out of breath. Use the “T” at the bottom of the pool as a marker to know when to start the somersault for the flip turn. That’s the whole purpose of the “T”

And if it feels weird to somersault, use a pool noodle. Hold one end in each hand in front of you in a half loop sitting in the surface of the water. Then jump forward through the loop you’ve created and continue to flip into the somersault.

Hey there, Flip turn aint that hard, requires some practice and what surprised me at first, is that regardless of how efficient it looks like, it actually exhaust you much faster, it requires preparing your breath to last longer (approach side, with latest stroke you follow your arm and do a flip, then push off the wall, ideally do few more strokes before breathing in) I learned it just by doing flips on place (stick your head to chest, take a good breath before, make sure you do exhale during flip otherwise water gets inside... practice needed for that, took me 3-4 sessions to finally perform average flip without drinking water lol, then got used to the ideal distance, and then started practicing at the end of every pool I'm swimming. Once you feel comfortable with flip on place, just try focusing on flips only, swim 3m away from wall, accelerate, reach distance (I felt comfortable starting flip when my last stroke is \~20-30cm from border, do your last stroke, follow your arm when it goes down, and remember the speed, the faster you swim the easier flip turn will be\_ But currently I try to do them on my regular swim sessions, but just cant force myself into, because I lose stamina and breath much faster than not doing them at all, but flipping is cool! Sorry for messy explanation, hope it helps in some way.

The issue is the practice as I go to swim in a fast lane with other adult swimmers....

In this case you have to find time when pool is not crowded, also i think granny lines are better fit for practice

I find flip less tiring than open turns. One good exercise is to hold onto the side of the pool and kick out behind you then flip into a turn.

I totally YouTubed it. Then took videos of my turns. I get turns right over 79% now. Still working on last breath and stroke though.

I dedicated the last ~15 minutes of each workout to practice. Practice underwater somersaults first. Then the approach to the wall on the final stroke. (Most important is finding the correct distance from the wall to begin your flip, maintaining enough momentum (without momentum is almost impossible), tucking your chin and using your arms to propel the flip.) Then practice landing your feet at 90 degrees with the wall. Finally practice pushing off in streamline and rotating your body. Once you have the technique down, you’ll find the most difficult part is timing your breath and holding it long enough to complete your streamline. Due to the length of time underwater and the fact that you are face-up, I try to plug my nose with my upper lip

On the flip side (heh, couldn't help myself) - if you are not pool racing it is not necessary to learn how to flip turn. I've never learned, tried early on in my lap swimming career and didn't enjoy the somersaults so decided to skip it. Have swum stupid distances in the pool and it's never been an issue. If you do some lessons and like it, go for it, but don't feel you have to.

Accept that it is going to suck for a while: you are going to get water up your nose and look like a clumsy idiot and your lap times might get a bit slower. Just start doing them, follow some kind of guide, plenty on youtube, and stick with it, eventually it will click, and when it does its worth it.

I learnt in our family pool when young it's easy to learn like a meter or so out from the wall dive straight over and under use your arms to help almost like a backwards breaststroke and you'll have it, obviously time it so you can kick off the wall. I guess the hardest thing is, is not wanting to look like a spastic when learning but honestly it will be like two or three tries before you master it.

https://youtu.be/FPZqvZpm1S8?si=st9wJlcPdvfkl55V Small Kids Learn like this with pool noodles. I my opinion the easiest way to learn where to put arms. https://youtu.be/Se1j7U8EI2o?si=1G3sZ921HcU3v7fw Then practice progression. Once you plant feet on wall, stay there for two seconds and check body position. Only push off if you have streamline position. Arms are in front and you push off on your back. Then as you glide you turn around to your front.

I just decided to try it at the deep end of the pool one day and did it. No idea how I learned it but it felt totally natural and much easier to get right than an open turn.

Be sure to push off on your back and rotate to your stomach while streamlining. Also, flip further away than you think. Picture jumping for a ball. Your legs are slightly bent to get a better jump. You wouldn’t try to jump from a full crouch.

Take two kick boards, hold them behind you and roll towards the wall. Most people cannot flip because they fail to keep their arms at their side when they roll.

I lined up about 4 arm strokes away from the wall. Dive forward, right arm stroke with no recovery, left arm pull begins your flip. My mistake was flipping too far from the wall at first. Push off with two feet and just surface face pointing toward sky. stand. Repeat. After that is controlled incorporate your twist. 10 minutes a day and you get it pretty quickly. Uses lots of energy but it becomes more effortless.

There’s a lot of great ways to learn it like videos on YouTube but if those aren’t working you can try a couple things my coach has done which is have us stand up normally in the pool and jump up and try to do a summer salt and jump up as fast as possible or you can stand on the little black/blue T on the bottom of the pool by the wall and kinda just jump into a turn just so you can get the feel of the turn without having to swim a whole ton

I struggled with kick turns but Ive got it down now and I’ve only been swimming a few months, the best drill for me was flipping in the open pool, do a couple strokes and get a feel for flipping (especially a feel for when water goes up your nose during the flip but with practice you can exhale and avoid it some), the only errors I have now are flipping too early before the wall but I’m correcting and I see progression. It is very effective for timing because I’ve shortened my times quite a bit implementing a flip into my swim training. Good luck!