When you’re swimming toward them in open water, buoys are your best friend...

But when it’s time to swim around them in a pack of other swimmers, they can be a nightmare of thrashing and confusion.  

To prepare for this, take out some lane lines and set up up a buoy situation in the pool.   All it takes is an inflatable ball or pool toy... a length of rope... and some sort of anchor.  

You can also use a teammate as a buoy...

...or place a cone on the bottom of the pool. 

Set up a situation where several swimmers can swim toward the buoy, turn, and swim back again.  In this clip, the swimmers are not using good technique as they turn at the buoy.  It’s pretty chaotic.

Here, the swimmers are using Sara’s technique for turning at the buoy... and you can see the difference.  In the next few clips we’ll take a closer look at how to do this. 

Sara’s technique for turning at the buoy is to swim with one arm... while using the other arm as a guide.

If the buoy is on her left, she gets to the buoy and keeps the left arm out front while she swims with the right arm.

The left arm leads her around the buoy and as soon as she finishes the turn, she continues swimming with both arms.

If the buoy is on the right, Sara keeps the right arm out front, curving it slightly to the right as she continues swimming with her left arm...and keeps kicking.  As she finishes the turn, she starts swimming again with both arms.


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Practice Your Buoys