A Comparative Time Motion Analysis of the Flip Turn and Suicide Turn during the Individual Medley Discipline

Townsend KSR, Rylands LP, Canham D. A Comparative Time Motion Analysis of the Flip Turn (FT) and Suicide Turn (ST) during the Individual Medley Discipline. JEPonline 2020;23(2):83-94. The purpose of this study was to identify any variation in time between two turn techniques in the individual medley. Five regional and four national level swimmers participated (4 males: age, 17.20 [+ or -] 2.86 yrs; height, 182.82 [+ or -] 3.03 cm; body mass, 72.57 [+ or -] 3.21 kg; and 5 females: age, 17.20 [+ or -] 2.86 yrs; height, 164.48 [+ or -] 5.53 cm; body mass, 56.54 [+ or -] 8.79 kg). The swimmers performed 3 trials of 4 turns over a distance of 100 m. Each turn was split into 4 phases the total time and split times were compare between the techniques. Data were collected using two underwater cameras (GoPro Hero 5s, GoPro Inc, USA) with a sample rate of 60 Hz. The results showed a significant time difference (P[less than or equal to]0.001) between the ST and the FT over the 100 m. To better understand the components and where time can be gained, more detailed analysis was employed to compare the ST and FT. Being able to split the turns into 4 phases, the phases highlighted significant variation (P[less than or equal to]0.001) with Phase 1, ST (1.44 [+ or -] 0.22) had a 5.06% improvement over the FT (1.51 [+ or -] 0.22), Phase 2, ST (0.97 [+ or -] 0.15) had a 6.61% improvement over the FT (1.03 [+ or -] 0.14), and Phase 4, ST (0.17 [+ or -] 0.08) had a 24.35% advantage over the FT (0.21 [+ or -] 0.13). Key Words: Flip Turn, Medley, Suicide Turn, Time Motion Analysis