Open Turn Drills

Surface Backflips

One of the most important components of an open turn is driving your knees up to your chest, which helps you roll backward in a tight ball. Appreciating how tightly you need to tuck to turn effectively can be difficult, but surface backflips exaggerate this skill.

To do this drill, lie flat on your stomach on the surface of the water. Drive your knees forward and roll back to complete a backflip.

No-Hand Turns 

No-hand turns challenge your ability to tuck tight and rotate backward.  

To do this drill, do an open turn without touching the wall with your hands. You don’t want to use your hands to lead your turn, but rather drive your knees up to your chest. By taking away your hands, the only way you’ll get your feet up on the wall is by punching up with your knees to rotate yourself backward. 

Open Turns With Tennis Balls 

Open turns with tennis balls helps you learn to punch your knees up to your chest, which is an important skill. Holding tennis balls will limit how much you’re able to use your hands.  

To do this drill, do a normal turn while holding tennis balls. Attempt to do the turn as quickly as possible by tucking as tightly as possible. 

Bottom Jumps 

One of the most important components of an open turn is pushing off in a straight line. The straighter you push, the more speed you’ll maintain. But knowing if you’re pushing off the wall straight can be difficult.  

Bottom jumps are effective for solving this problem. To do this drill, in water that’s 2 to 3 feet deeper than your height, jump up and down off the bottom of the pool. The goal is to land in the same spot every time. You’ll have to jump straight to do so. 

Bottom Jumps With Quarter/Half/Full Turns 

When you do open turns for butterfly, breaststroke, and freestyle, you must rotate to your stomach. Pushing off the wall straight is hard enough. Pushing off straight while rotating is even more difficult.  

Bottom jumps with quarter/half/full turns can help with that. To do this drill, in water that’s 2 to 3 feet deeper than your height, jump up and down off the bottom of the pool but add a quarter, half, or full twist as you do so. The goal is to land in the same spot, even with the twist. Add more twist as your skills improve. 

Hands on Deck 

Tucking tightly and punching your knees up to your chest are important skills that, when performed well, tend to make the rest of your turn go smoothly. Hands on deck helps you develop those skills. 

To do this drill, swim into the wall and touch with both hands. Rather than putting your feet on the wall, do a full backflip and place your hands in the gutter or on the pool deck. 

This drill also emphasizes staying low throughout your turn.  

Turn and Glide 

A great indicator of your ability to push off the wall effectively is how long you can glide after the turn. Turn and glide helps you develop that skill. 

To do this drill, swim into the wall, do your turn, push off, and glide for as long as you can. If your push-off is weak or your streamlined position is bad, you won’t travel far.  

This drill provides clear feedback about where you need to improve. Work on increasing your glide distance over time.  

Surfacing Requirement 

Being consistent with your open turns during workouts is difficult, especially as you get tired. Surfacing requirement is a simple way to address this issue. 

To do this drill, place a cone or other object on the bottom of the pool, 3 to 5 yards/meters from the wall. When you do your turn, don’t start kicking or swimming until you pass the cone. This requires you to focus on a great push-off and a great streamline. 

Hands on Wall With Tennis Balls 

Hands on wall with tennis balls emphasizes tucking tight and staying low. 

To do this drill, touch the wall with both hands, do a full backflip, and touch the wall again. Holding tennis balls makes this drill difficult because you can’t use your hands to help with rotation. Be aggressive punching your knees up to your chest to drive your backflip.  

Swim With Mid-Pool Flip Into Fast Finish 

You don’t always get perfect push-offs when racing, so practice learning how to get your body back up to speed in workouts. A great way to do that is the swim with mid-pool flip into fast finish drill. 

To do this drill, swim 12½ yards/meters, flip, and return to the wall as fast as you can. You’ll have to get back up to speed after coming to a stop. 

This drill also has the benefit of helping you practice being aggressive into your flip turn. You shouldn’t hesitate, and without a wall to crash into, there’s nothing to worry about.