By Olivier Poirier-Leroy on SwimSwam
With a new season around the corner, it’s worth revisiting the basics.
Working technique, setting a foundation for the rest of the season, and getting a strong start on cranking out better underwaters.
There’s a lot that goes into the type of underwaters that will make your PBs tremble—tight streamline, push-off force, clean lines off the wall, kick counts, undulation.
All the usual suspects.
And then there are those hips of yours.
Crisp and powerful hip movements are essential for fast dolphin kicking. Which means building strength on both sides of your hips.
The Impact of Stronger Hips on Dolphin Kicking
In a previous piece on the importance of the hips in dolphin kicking, we looked at their role in driving the movement.
As you kick, the hips change direction first, dominate throughout the kick cycle, and hip timing is more important than toe velocity for predicting kick speed (Tsunokawa et al., 2025).
Technically, they are important. Which means we can probably improve their impact on our kick by making them stronger, yes? (Spoiler: Yes.)
A study (Ruiz-Navarro et al., 2024) tested this out with a group of swimmers. Over five weeks, they did extra dedicated dolphin kicking at practice.
One group did pure dolphin kick training in the water. The other group did half the pool work and added hip-centric resistance training.
The exercises were really simple. Swimmers attached their ankles to a pulley system and did either:
Leg extension – To work hip flexion (like when kicking the legs down) Hip extension – To help drive the legs “up”Essentially, the exercises worked the muscles that powered both sides of the kick.
The swimmers who did these exercises with the pool work improved UDK speed by an average of 5%, and peak speed jumped by 6.7%.
Kick kinematics also improved, with toe velocity increasing by 6% and kick tempo going up.
The kick-only group? No meaningful improvement. (Bummer.)
The Sneaky Role of Stronger Hips in the UDK
One of the hardest parts of working the UDK—and there are plenty of “hard” parts to choose from—is a balanced kick. Dolphin kicking down with chlorinated fury and then also kicking with intent during the upkick.
Stronger hips are perfect for this, because the upkick is where most swimmers stand to improve most. Kicking down hard is fairly easy, our quads are big and nasty and knee extension comes naturally
It’s in building a stronger, more purposeful upkick where swimmers can shave some serious time.
Atkinson et al. (2014) saw that faster kickers kicked more aggressively through the upkick, leading to quicker kick cycles, more forward momentum, and reduced decelerations. Strengthening the hips is an excellent way to make this happen.
Wrapping Thungs Up
The season is long, your goals are shiny, and those underwaters represent a real opportunity to get better this year.
So as you sit down and think about what you want to accomplish in the water this season…
Put stronger, more balanced hips near the top of the list.
And let those underwaters rip.
Happy kicking!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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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