How to Improve Your Swimming Turns

Do you want to know how to improve your swimming turns without any extra training? We swimmers have a mentality that to be better and faster, we need to do more. For instance, we would think that we need to train more, have more sessions in the water, or have the more innovative fabric in our swimsuits. However, as we go on in this post, you might just realize that it only takes a little more mental focus to be able to get better results in your swimming turns.

In this post, we will be discussing the step-by-step instructions on how to improve your swimming turns. We hope that by the end of this post, you get to generate a faster swimming technique, as well as turns that are more efficient. Keep on reading this article if you want to know more.

How to Improve Your Swimming Turns

Probably the easiest way to improve your swimming turns is to start your reps from the pool’s middle section. From there, you can try swimming out to the 12.5 or 25-mark while starting from the center. For instance, you may start in the middle of the pool for your two per rep set rather than doing a one push-off and turn. Here’s what you need to do:

-Get a high stroke rate in your first few strokes. This would be beneficial for you, especially if you are having trouble increasing your stroke rate. You may notice that it may be a lot more challenging to gain more speed because you would not get to reap the benefits of the push-off and the underwater dolphin kick.

-Get an active rest. Most swimmers nowadays could not way any longer for them to float just so they can place their arms in the gutter for passive rest in between reps. With this, it would be a lot more difficult to start mid-pool, especially if you are tasked to doing active rests in between reps, may it be through vertical kicking or treading water.

-Try sprinting into the wall. Doing this set with a sort of a variation allows you to start from five to 10 meters away from the pool then into a sprint to a wall and turn. This would mean that you would not be required to perform a full sprint lap before you hit a turn at high speed.

-Swim with fins. Surely you can perform turns when you are practicing or when you are swimming with moderate intensity. However, when you are racing, things change. You may try swimming and turning at high speed using fins just so you can get used to the velocity. Doing so allows you to be acquainted with the closing wall, especially if you are diving in at the big meet.

-Train in long course meters. This would come in handy, as it allows an easy way for you to get more turn, along with the aerobic benefits and advantages of long course swimming.

-Remember that the way you train is also the way you race. If you want to improve your swimming turns at a race, you should also know how to improve your swimming turns during practice. Remember to do the abovementioned steps each and every day you are practicing.

Tips on How to Improve Your Swimming Turns

- Accelerate into the swimming pool’s wall. As you are approaching the turn, you must think in terms of acceleration. Keep in mind that if you have more speed carried in your turn, the faster you will be rotating and exploding of the wall.

- Try not to breathe into the wall. You may have repeatedly heard this from your coach but chose to ignore it. What is it for, anyway? As it turns out, not breathing into the wall has a lot of benefits. In fact, it also helps promote improved chin placement and it can teach you how to make better breathing patterns.

- Tuck your chin. This is a very common mistake among swimmers, beginners or experienced. Most of them pick their heads up to take a look at the pool’s wall. Instead of doing this, you must try tucking your chin while you trust your stroke count. Doing so allows you to ensure that your feet will land so you can use it to push off the wall with maximum power. When you try to take a peek, it would only lead to an over-rotation, both for your approach and exit. In addition, you might end up trying to compensate for the extra rotation.

- You may also try hot footing the turns with your arms extended once your feet hit the wall. Once you have mastered tucking your chin, you now need to concentrate on maintaining the speed every time you turn. You may actually get to save valuable seconds by having your arms above your head once your feet touch the pool’s wall. - -- You don’t even have to wait. While this technique may need a bit of practicing and getting used to, it’s very worthy of your additional mental focus.

- You should also be getting more sleep. While you may think that this is totally unrelated to improving your swimming turns, we might just prove you wrong. In fact, research suggested that swimming turn performance has significantly improved when athletes get an extra hour or two of sleep each night. According to the study, swimmers have slashed around 0.10 seconds off when turning. This may not sound significant but when you add it all up over the course of your race, you might just realize that it’s something substantial.

- You might want to refrain from landing on the wall with both of your feet tight together. In case you didn’t know, this would only create a weak foundation, from which you generate the power. To add, you wouldn’t want to miss out on the speed by rushing into the stroke a bit too soon.

- Be sure that you’re close enough to the wall when you’re turning. That way, there would be knee bend when you land. After all, there wouldn’t be any stored energy if you push off from straight legs.

Conclusion

Knowing how to improve your swimming turns is essential, especially if you’re joining a swimming competition. You may actually save valuable seconds if you try to perform the step-by-step instructions we have rounded up in this post. While these ‘seconds’ may not seem like a big deal, it would be if you consider the total time you have saved in every set you have performed.