By Olivier Poirier-Leroy on SwimSwam
What happens when you extend your underwater breakouts? Here’s a look at the metabolic implications for training and racing.
Thundering underwaters are essential for a quick start and fast turns.
So we kick our little hearts out at practice with:
Kick counts Resisted kicking Vertical kicking Kicking on our front, back, and side to sideAll so we can improve our dolphin kick and max out the speed advantage of kicking faster underwater than surface swimming.
But what happens when you push your underwaters further than usual?
(Besides getting a little more out of breath, obviously…)
The Effects of Longer Underwaters
A study (Venckunas & Achramavicius., 2024) tested this out with a group of junior swimmers, national to international level, cranking out solid volume per week (40-70k).
Swimmers were tasked with swimming a pair of 200 freestyles at threshold pace:
Once with their usual 4-5m underwaters off every wall. And then once extending all their underwaters out to 12.5m.Result?
The longer breakouts resulted in much higher post-swim lactate levels:
Short underwaters: 3.3 mmol/L. Long underwaters: 7.9 mmol/L.Staying under for longer pushed swimmers much deeper into anaerobic territory, even though they weren’t swimming faster. When you restrict breathing, your body ends up relying more on anaerobic energy to keep the pace.
So what does this tell us?
A couple of key things.
Race Day Underwaters
If you’ve been training with ~5m underwaters all season long, and it’s time to step up on the block to compete, it’s not a great idea to double up kickout distance.
Especially in events with a heavy aerobic component.
Which, admittedly, is all races outside of the splash and dash. Rodriguez and Mader, (2011) analyzed the contribution of energy systems across different events, and even the 100m free had a chunky aerobic contribution of ~41%. And it only goes up from there.
If you’re working hard aerobically, cutting off oxygen delivery for another 5-7m per lap is going to dig you into a deep metabolic hole that you’re going to have a hard time clawing out of.
Extended Underwaters in Practice
But in practice? Experimenting and deliberately extending underwaters can be used as a training tool.
When done at controlled speed with proper rest, extended underwaters:
Build lactate tolerance Improve lactate clearance Strengthen the anaerobic system Develop the mental resilience to tolerate CO2 buildupAll without having to swim faster or “harder.”
The cool part is that being more intentional with your underwater kick outs reduces lactate production over time in response to the same effort. Like most things in the water, your body gets better at handling it with progressive exposure.
Over time, the same underwater distance produces less lactate—or the same lactate with more powerful kicks.
How to Get Started with Longer Underwaters in Training
If this is tickling your chlorinated fancy, here are a few practical guidelines to help you get started:
Keep the intensity submaximal. It doesn’t need to be done all-out. The stress comes from the breath-hold, not the speed. Give yourself real rest between reps. Adaptation happens when you recover, not when you’re gasping through sloppy reps. Progress gradually. Start simple and doable with kick counts. 1-2 dolphin kicks if that is what it takes.Used randomly—or at the last minute on race day—extended underwaters will drain you quickly.
But used deliberately, with progression, structure, and recovery, they will build a faster swimmer for race day.
The Bottom Line
The underwater dolphin kick is one of the sneaky and misunderstood parts of fast swimming on race day.
But to have the smooth, powerful UDK when you arrive at a meet you need to have done the work in training to make it cheap to use and won’t wreck you mid-race.
Build the kick in practice. And then when it’s time to race, cash it in.
Happy kicking!
ABOUT OLIVIER POIRIER-LEROY
Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national-level swimmer, 2x Olympic Trials qualifier, and author of several books for swimmers, including The Dolphin Kick Manual: The Swimmer’s Ultimate Guide to a Fast Underwater Dolphin Kick.
The book is a beastly 240+ pages of actionable insights and research into elite dolphin kicking technique and performance. It details everything from mastering undulation to vortex recapturing to structuring a dryland program for dolphin kicking success.
The Dolphin Kick Manual combines evidence-based insights with a collection of 20 ready-to-go sets and a 6-week Action Plan to help swimmers set a course for dolphin kicking success.
Train smarter and kick faster.
Learn more about The Dolphin Kick Manual
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