Building effective backstroke turns starts with knowing your count.

Why do it:
While we've covered this before, we continue to see swimmers sighting the wall after the roll over, so we'll cover it again. Lifting the head to look at the wall is sending you in the wrong direction into your turns. Know your count and keep the head down.

How to do it:
1 - Swim fast toward the wall, and as soon as you see the flags... flip... and kick out back into swimming.
2 - Each time you swim in again, take one additional stroke.
3 - Keep this up until you get to the wall.

How to do it really well (the fine points):
The idea is to go directly over into the turn as soon as you roll onto your stomach. Try to avoid rolling, looking, and then turning. Keep the action moving through the turn to maintain your momentum.

Learning the flow of the move prior to connecting with the wall will help swimmers learn that the roll and flip can be one movement... not separate. Keep working until you know the count with either arm.

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Backstroke - Turn Timing Drill