Breaststroke and Butterfly turns have the same movement pattern, and when mastered, are not only fast, but beautiful to watch too, and the mark of a really good swimmer. Take a look at the images, available from the blog homepage, of a swimmer turning.
1) Head position.
This is so important. As you approached the wall flat on your chest, for a good turn your body needs to twist to allow you to push off on your side. With your eyes fixed firmly on the centre mark of the turning wall you can not physically twist any more than 40 degrees in doing this, so, fixing your head position correctly as the hands touch makes sure you don't over-rotate which will slow down your turn.
As two hands touch simultaneously, look directly below you at the floor.
2) Body rotation and movement of your arms.
From the two-handed touch, your upper body will have slowed right down, however, your legs need to keep on travelling in whilst you twist your torso 40 degrees ready for you to push off on your side. During this time, your left arm should be pulling back underwater, led by the elbow, ready to streamline. Your eyes should be fixed on the centre line of the turning wall.
3) Head movement, arm movement and feet plant.
There are 3 important movements required to make this turn really good. Your head needs to move in a 'looking at the floor ' position to 'looking directly up at the ceiling' position with the back of the head lowering into the pool. focussing especially on getting the arm working underwater coming off the wall, leading with a karate reverse elbow movement. Your leading hand, the right, needs to 'salute' past your head and ear with elbow pointing to the ceiling, then stretch out to meet the other outstretching hand underwater in a streamlined shape. Your knees will be bending up quickly to your chest and your feet will be ready to 'plant' on the wall so you can push-off powerfully.
Keep your head low, neck line at the water surface, you need to 'bounce back' off the wall, not climb up it, to make your turn fast.
4) pushing off the wall
The head should be tucking in streamlined, ears between the arms. Explode off the wall, streamlined, on your side. Slow down to race speed, then work your underwaters phase and transition into the stroke without losing any momentum.
5) Making it happen.
Rehearse these movements, slow at first - through to fast.
Chris says:
Our goal is to get very swift 'Hand to feet' speed, it needs to be less than .8 of a second! A swimmer's turning action needs to be nothing less than a blur! ..the higher up the rankings you aspire to be, the faster and more efficient you have to be around these walls!!
The best way to learn though is slow to fast, so, concentrate on going through these important motions, slow at first, focussing especially on getting the underwater arm coming off the wall, leading first, then your 'saluting', over the water arm has a target to land on.
As you improve in skill and speed, the arm actions, knees coming in and body rotations will be pretty much simultaneous, resulting in a fast, efficient and race winning turn.