Tips for a perfect backstroke turn

Being blind to the upcoming wall unnerves many swimmers, whose tentative backstroke walls cause them to lose a lot of time to their competitors. Aggressiveness walls can cover a multitude of swimming errors. Here are some tips, devided into the three parts of a flip turn, that will help you do perfect backstroke turns.

Backstroke approach

• Know what you can and cannot do. Knowing the rules is essential for the backstroke approach. A swimmer may turn onto his stomach the last stroke of each length. The turn must be continuous. The swimmer must flow seamlessly  from the pull into the somersault.
• Use attack mode. Accelerate into the wall, picking up the tempo the last couple of strokes.
• Know your count. It is fundamental, and absolutely necessary for a fast turn, for the swimmers to know their stroke count from the flags to the wall. Just as fundamental is consistenly swimming fast to the wall so that they take the same number of strokes every time.

Backstroke turn on the wall

Because the swimmers perform the actual turn from on the stomach, the fundamentals of the freestyle turn apply. The only real differences are that the last stroke ot two are even more important for speed into the wall, and the swimmer stays on his/her back coming off the wall.

• Roll, reach, pull, snap. Swimmers must increase momentum into the wall. Gliding into the wall is illegal, slow, and common. Half-stroking into the wall reduces their speed and kills momentum. Instead, the last stroke should be a long one with a stretch. That way, the pull performed, while on the stomach is strong and powers the swimmer into the turn. 
• Do the quad. This is the same four motions as in the freestyle somersault: duck the chin, dolphin hard, tuck at the middle, and back-scull with the hands. Do these motions simultaneous, and you will have a quick somersault.

Backstroke send-away

Using the speed and aggressiveness of the turn on the wall, the swimmer powers into the send-away, leaving the wall on his back and making sure to surface by the 15 m mark.

• Explode. This is similar to freestyle but easier, since the swimmer hits the wall on his/her back and gets to stay on it. There is one touch and go with a powerful push off the wall, back straight and body taut.
• Streamline, hyperspeed kick, and break out. The body is straight and taut, the head is ducked under the arms, and the hands are one on top of the other. Underwater dolphins should be small, tight, quick, and powerful so that the body maintains its steamlined posture. Just before the swimmer surfaces and begins to swim, s/he transitions from dolphins to flutter kicks. The break out is horizontal with full forward momentum.

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