Individual Medley Changeover Turns
Practise the three changeovers of the individual medley – butterfly to backstroke, backstroke to breaststroke and breaststroke to front crawl – one at a time.
- Stages
- Swimming – Stage 10
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Skills
- Front Crawl, Backstroke, Coordination, Breaststroke, Butterfly, Turns
- Equipment
- None
- Age
- 9–99 years
- Group size
- 1–16 swimmers
- Time
- About 8 minutes
- In a lesson
- Skill Development 1, Skill Development 2
- Shared by
- SwimShare Resource
Safety notes
- Backstroke into the wall: use flags and a stroke count.
What it develops
- Link strokes in individual medley order
- Starts, turns and finishes as part of a swim
How to run it
- Butterfly to backstroke: two-hand touch, turn onto the back and push off on the back.
- Backstroke to breaststroke: touch on the back, then turn and push off on the front (an open turn is fine at this level).
- Breaststroke to front crawl: two-hand touch, turn and push off into front crawl.
- Practise each changeover from 5 metres out, then link two strokes and one changeover over a short swim.
Teaching cues
- Order: fly, back, breast, free.
- Touch the wall the way the stroke you're finishing needs.
- Push off ready for the next stroke.
Make it easier
- Swim only the last few strokes into each changeover.
Make it harder
- Swim a short individual medley (4 × 1 width or 4 × 25 metres) with all three changeovers.
Common faults
- Forgetting the stroke order.
- One-hand touch on the breaststroke finish.
- Rolling onto the front before touching on backstroke.
Corrections
- 'Say it out loud: fly, back, breast, free.'
- 'Two hands – breaststroke always.'
- 'Stay on your back until you've touched.'
Assistant / L1 role
- Hold up a card showing the next stroke as each swimmer approaches the wall, following the teacher's order.