tumble turns

hunnymonster

I'm quite new to swimming but I have improved to the point where I'm swimming a couple of mornings a week with a great group of local masters. The only problem is that they are all tumbleturners and I'm not. Every time I try, I get a dizzy tummy. You know the feeling you had as a kid when you turned around and around in circles. Is there anything I can do to avoid this?

AngryHippie

Tumbleturns are tricky to get right, but are really worth the effort in a 25m pool.
Practice forward tumbles in the middle of the pool, tuck chin to chest, curl knees up to chest, hands out to your sides and roll, use your hands to help you roll. You get used to the feeling after a while, unless you suffer from vertigo or poor balance. Once you are able to do a tumble mid-pool and stand up comfortably, Its time to start doing it near a wall.
The lines on the wall (or tiles) are there for this reason: to help you judge when to tumble. This take quite a bit of trial and error to get right. Spend a dew hours on the tumbles and then move it in to the wall. As soon as you are able to swim tumble and push off, get one of the masters to have a closer look, to see If you are too close, or if there are any major problems.
When pushing off the wall, stay uspide-down until your feet have left the wall, use the angle of your hands as a plane to roll you over.

hunnymonster

unfortunately I do have vertigo which I suspect is the origin of the problem. The technque doesn't bother me, it's only the dizziness which doesn't go away, no matter how often I try.

rubadub

It is fun to do, but if exercising just to burn off calories there is no need to bother really. It is important for races of course, you push off the wall and glide along efficiently. But if your aim is burning calories then you should be making it as hard as you can, so not pushing off the wall is going to make you use more calories, per length. I can do them but dont bother for that reason.

It is like in the cycling forum people advise to get racers or hybrids since a mountain bike is less efficient. but if your aim is burning calories, a mountain bike is fine, sturdy, safer too as you are going slower, and if you encounter a dodgy road it is safer too.

hunnymonster

rubadub, no not swimming for calorie burn. Pool swimming over the winter to work on technique and avoid the cold water (yes I'm a wimp)

like I said in the first post, I'm swimming with a group who are all tumblers and it breaks the momentum of the group because I have to touch & kick. I tried again last night but barely made it out of the pool before puking. Sometimes take drugs for the vertigo and might have to do that, but I'm not mad on medicating 3 times a week.

AngryHippie

Its not worth takin pills just to tumble turn. I've never taken a pill that didn't have some sort of side effect.
If you've got vertigo, It's not meant to be. You are an open water swimmer during the warm season by the sound of it, so its not that big a deal.
There is an alternative to tumbling, it used to be the backcrawl turn, basically, you roll over onto your back, touch wall with fingers, crunch up as if to tumble, but spin about instead, sculling in a circle with your hands (looks a bit like a break-dancing move)
Its not that fast, thats why it was scrapped from the FINA rules, but it would be marginally faster than touch and go.
Don't feel bad about not tumbling, I know plenty of quick swimmers who don't.

Mellor

rubadub wrote: »

But if your aim is burning calories then you should be making it as hard as you can, so not pushing off the wall is going to make you use more calories, per length.

That is a really silly way to look at it, and in my opinion wrong.
tumbles are the fastest way to complete a lenght. So you assume that they are also the easiest? afraid not. The glide is the same for tumble or grab and kick, so no reduced effort in that respect.
If you tumble you will get more lenghts in, so clearly more energy used here.
And the physical act of a tumble uses more energy imo than grab and turn. Just look at people who are getting tired, they often stop doing tumbles as it is more effort.

Just because tumbles are faster doesn't mean than use less energy. As an example, if you were to sprint a 50m, as fast as you could, and do one slowly. Would the energy used be the same, obviously not. The faster 50 will use more energy over the same distance.


To the OP, if you are a casual swimmer don't worry about tumbles, they are only important if you are in a pool race. Work on making your grab turn as fast as possible to keep up, try a turn similar to the breaststroke race turn.

interested

For the OP

My suggestion is that if you're happy with technique then after you throw your legs over and your feet are on the wall (or just about to touch it) 'spot' or look at a point back up the pool - where you'll be pushing towards.

Hope this makes sense and helps in some way

Sorry to hear you get vertigo - based on previous posts Id imagine you might get similar tummy issues in chop in open water ??? Ive swum in open seas for years and recently amused a load of people by getting sea sick in heavy chop ... nice and seriously amusing for some of those I was with

hunnymonster

interested wrote: »

Sorry to hear you get vertigo - based on previous posts Id imagine you might get similar tummy issues in chop in open water ??? Ive swum in open seas for years and recently amused a load of people by getting sea sick in heavy chop ... nice and seriously amusing for some of those I was with

Yeah, I'm not great in choppy water but funnily enough that is improving. For ironman races I do take the drugs. It's a long day out there to have a sick tummy.

BendiBus

You could try the open turn (could be the backcrawl turn described by AngryHippie) as demonstrated in these videos.

http://www.goswim.tv/entries/c/24/starts-turns.html

AngryHippie

Thats the Breaststroke/Butterfly turn in that video, done correctly its pretty fast, and not too difficult to get the hang of, but its not the one I was talking about. I'll track down a video of it and throw it up next week.