By Olivier Poirier-Leroy on SwimSwam
The dolphin kick plays a decisive role in fast underwaters, and mastering it is crucial for swimmers of nearly all distances and most strokes.
So swimmers ply their underwater craft and work breath control, undulation, ankle flexibility, trunk stability, kick amplitude, distance per kick, and more. One of the best tools for checking all of those boxes is fish kicking. Quite literally turn on your side and kick like a… well, a fish.
Olympic 200m butterfly champion Misty Hyman was a pioneer of it. These days, elite swimmers such as Gretchen Walsh, Leon Marchand, and Marrit Steenbergen also use several cycles of fish kick when exploding out of their turns.
Here’s why injecting some fish kicking into your underwater work can pay off in a big way.
Improve undulation
Undulation is the engine room of a fast underwater dolphin kick. When we undulate through the water properly, we create larger and stronger vortices, which lead to faster dolphin kicking speeds (Tanaka et al., 2022).
And wouldn’t ya know it, fish kicking is an excellent tool for developing this fundamental characteristic of awesome dolphin kicking. Because fish kicking takes swimmers out of what can often be a rigid, face-down posture that can lead to wooden dolphin kicking, it ends up promoting a smoother, fuller body wave.
On our side, we have a better sense of how undulation flows from the chest, through the core, and snaps through the hips, knees, and ankles.
The late, legendary coach Bob Gillett—who helped Misty Hyman develop her iconic underwaters and led the charge on fish kicks for faster underwaters—found that fish kicking naturally increased range of motion, leading to improved distance per kick and contributing to faster overall speed.
Fish kicking is a great way to highlight what larger range of motion and increased undulation can do for our “regular” dolphin kick.
Protect your vortices
One of the big benefits of fish kicking—especially for swimmers who train in shallower pools—is that kicking on your side allows vortices to build and not get smashed to smithereens by the pool bottom or the surface.
When kicking on our front in shallower water, the vortices from the upkick break apart at the surface and those from our downkick go boom into the pool floor. We end up losing a decent amount of propulsion as a result.
By rotating on our side, the vortices have a chance to continue to spin. This leads to something super cool called vortex recapturing. This is where swimmers reuse vortices for subsequent kicks, saving energy and increasing propulsion (Hochstein & Blickhan, 2011).
Faster upkick
The dolphin kick is primarily powered by the downkick. But the upkick—where the feet draw back up toward the surface—is where swimmers stand to indirectly gain a lot of propulsion.
Fish kicking is an excellent diagnostic tool for exposing a slow upkick because it forces swimmers to generate balanced thrust in both directions. If the upkick is slow or passive, you’ll quickly veer into the lane rope, pool ladder, or teammate (not ideal).
Even though the upkick doesn’t create the same propulsion as the downkick, faster toe speed in this phase matters big time. A sharper upkick moves you quickly between kick phases, reduces the time spent in high-drag transition positions (Cohen et al., 2011), and sets up a stronger, more effective downkick.
Elite kickers drive aggressively through the upkick (Atkinson et al., 2014), and fish kicking can be the ideal tool to help you find that balance within your kick phases.
Faster out of the walls
Kicking on your side tends to also be faster than kicking on your front.
A study (Collard et al., 2008) with 15 national-level swimmers showed that fish kicking was significantly faster to 15m than “regular” dolphin kicking from a push. Even more striking was that none of the swimmers had practiced this style of dolphin kicking before.
When you watch elite swimmers and underwater monsters in competition, you will note that many perform several kicks on their side when coming out of a turn:
Leon Marchand, on his way to underwater kicking 14.11m (!!!) on his final turn in the 400m individual medley at the Paris Olympics, did his first couple of kicks on his side. Marrit Steenbergen, 100m freestyle world champion in 2025, did 5-6 cycles of fish kick coming out of the turn on her way to victory. Gretchen Walsh, breaking the 50m freestyle short course world record, pushed off at the turn and did several fish kicks before rotating on her front and angling towards the surface. Maggie Mac Neill, an absolute assassin underwater, could fish kick at ludicrous speeds.Fish kicking can be a corrective tool for your front and back dolphin kicks, but it can also be used when coming out of the walls for increased exit velocity.
Opens up the kick
Kick amplitude naturally increases when kicking on our side, making fish kick an excellent mobilization drill to “open up” the muscles and joints associated with efficient dolphin kicking.
On days when I’ve been at my desk for extended periods writing about dolphin kicking or after a few days away from the pool, those first few dolphin kicks on my front always feel a little rigid.
Firing up some reps of fish kick is an awesome way to accelerate:
Increased range of motion (especially in thoracic spine) More dynamic undulation Improved hip mobilityAdd a few 25s of fish kick to your warm-up before a big main set or kick some reps after a week away from the pool to limber up and de-clunk your joint mobility.
The Bottom Line
Fish kicks are part drill, part (natural) performance booster.
Use them to balance out your kick, increase undulation, and open your joints for more efficient kicking. By rotating on your side, you create longer-lasting vortices and can use fish kicking as a weapon when shooting off the walls for quicker times to the surface.
Your underwaters are too valuable to leave to chance. Throw some fish kicks into the mix the next time you’re at the pool, build a better body wave, and kick your way to some piping-hot personal best times.
Happy kicking!
Level Up Your Underwater Dolphin Kick
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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