Be fast without rushing – Part Two

Butterfly & Breaststroke Turns

How to improve your execution speed?

Erwann Jacob, Guingamp’s coach, says: “to manage performing a quick and efficient turn, the swimmer has to learn to organize himself on the movement. The shoulders and the head must remain in the water with breathe being taken during the turnover phase. To have a benchmark on the execution speed, we can monitor the time spent between the moment the hands touch the wall and the moment the last foot leaves the “push off” phase. Smaller swimmers have an advantage during the turnover”.

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Here are a few of the times (hands touching the wall/feet leaving the wall) made by the arena elite team swimmers during the last Olympics in London 2012 and the 2015 World Championships:

In breaststroke:

• Ruta Melutyte:  1,08 sec in London 2012 and in Kazan 2015
• Adam Peaty:  1,23 sec in Kazan 2015
• Cameron Van der burgh: 0,96 sec in London 2012
• Daniel Gyurta:  1,08 sec in London 2012

In butterfly

• Katinka Hosszu:  1,24 sec in Kazan 2015
• Sarah Sjostrom:  1,26 sec in Kazan 2015

Workout in the pool  

8 X (7m+25m) butterfly-backstroke-breaststroke-freestyle: Swim up to 7 meters before the wall, do the turnover, swim 25 meters and then exit the pool with both arms pushing down on the wall and both feet landing together on the floor.

Workout out of the pool

The most complete workout is to combine each of the above exercises with a set of pool sprints. Before each 25 meter length, complete a repetition of burpees, which will increase the breathing rate and will require the use of all the muscle groups needed for the turnover.

Tips

• Land softly
• Bring the legs back as fast as possible under the hips. This will help you gain efficiency during the turns
• Achieve an explosive push off with your legs for the jump.
• It is important to remain in a streamlined position during the jump, same position as during the underwater phase after the turn.

Be fast without rushing

Spending time on each phase of the turn will improve the swimmers’ technique. It will help acquire time (some precious hundreds of second) during the race, without spending more energy than needed.

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