Triathletes and Flip Turns
Updated: Apr 25, 2019
Some triathletes and open water swimmers feel that learning to do flip turns is not only a waste of time but can slow you down for racing in open water. On the contrary, if you add up all those split-second poolside breaks you take at the wall and you will find that swimming a mile in open water is a lot tougher than swimming a mile broken up into 25-yard segments.
So when you do a flip turn, it eliminates these tiny rest stops from your workout and, over time, develops more continuous-swimming endurance. For open water swimming and triathlon training, your overall goal is to improve endurance and flip turns can help you do that.
h/t A3 Performance
