For all competitive and especially active lifestyle lap swimmers this is the ideal turn that makes you a swimmer.
All you have to focus on doing is getting totally on your side coming in to the wall and going back out away from the wall on to your other side. You can think of your ear facing the wall, do your turn, and lead out with your other ear. It’s that simple rocking motion of the head that gets your body moving.
Of course, it helps to rotate your body by getting into a tighter ball with your legs drawn up, too. As your lead arm grasps the wall let your elbow bend in a little and quickly push away and release that lead hand.
Your trailing hand turns the palm up and gives a quick “backwater” motion to start your upper half leaning back sideways to get into a streamlined position as soon as the hand from the wall meets up with it. Now you should be in position as your body has been rotating at the same time even though no body part was in contact with the wall. Make sure you do a complete underwater push off.
Think of yourself as a submarine, sleek and streamlined to make a long underwater push off, glide, and then start your kick and take your first long swim stroke. You should be past the flags every turn.
Ok, so you want to work harder to burn more calories. Then swim harder between the walls, but you can still be more efficient.