By Olivier Poirier-Leroy on SwimSwam
Frustrated with uneven dolphin kick speed? Learn where decelerations happen and how to reduce them for faster underwaters.
When it comes to fast dolphin kicking, swimmers tend to focus on kicking harder.
And why not?
A lot of things in the pool can be improved by sprinkling a little more kaboom on it.
But a more time-effective approach—both for faster times on the clock and better use of training time—is to start by cleaning up the parts in the kick cycle where you are losing speed.
How Decelerations Slow Dolphin Kicking Speeds
Every dolphin kick naturally fluctuates in velocity. Ebbs and flows, ups and downs. The downkick is the main propulsive phase, and speed peaks there. That’s expected.
Problems float to the surface when those fluctuations start to look more like a drum n’ bass song than a smooth melody.
Instead of carrying forward on our merry way, the kick stalls. And rather than slicing smoothly through the water, it starts to feel like we are kicking through pudding.
These slowdowns tend to happen in a couple of places:
Slow upkick
The upkick is the oft-neglected part of the dolphin kick as it’s not as propulsive as the downkick. But when swimmers move their legs passively and sluggishly during the upkick, velocity drops sharply.
The upkick is not a motorboat in terms of propulsion, but it has several important roles in the kick, including vortex recapturing, causing some propulsion, and setting up the next downkick.
By puttering through the upkick, we create a deeper speed hole to climb out of by the time the next downkick rolls around.
Atkinson et al. (2014), studying national-level swimmers, found that toe velocity during the upkick had the strongest relationship with dolphin kick speed. Slower kickers dawdled in the upkick, leading to greater deceleration and slower overall speeds.
Slow transitions
The transition between upkick and downkick (and vice versa) plays a sneaky and outsized role in fast dolphin kicking because it’s the point where frontal drag is highest.
Compared to when we are mid-kick, frontal drag spikes by around 40% at the top and bottom of the kick cycle (Cohen et al., 2011).
Pausing or hesitating between phases instead of moving through smooth, buttery transitions, causes dead spots that cause speed to fall off a cliff.
A study (Ruiz-Navarro et al., 2017) ran swimmers through a seven-week dolphin kick training intervention and saw an 8% improvement in kicking speed. The gains were mostly the result of quicker transitions between the downkick and upkick phases, which improved by about 40%.
Elite kickers don’t completely eliminate these decelerations—no one can—but they definitely go out of their way to minimize them!
Fast Dolphin Kickers Don’t Let Speed Float Away
Fast dolphin kickers have the flexible ankles, they have the tempo, the ankle strength, and lower body power. But perhaps more importantly, they are acutely aware of where speed leaks like poorly fitting swim goggles.
Add some of these dolphin kick variations to promote the smooth (fast) kick you want out of your underwaters:
Fish kick
Fish kicking naturally forces a more fluid and intentional upkick. Otherwise, you’ll kick and veer off into the lane rope—great for immediate feedback, not great for skidding your shoulders and back along the blades of the lane rope.
Fish kick has many benefits for the enterprising dolphin kicker, from improving undulation to even being faster than front-side dolphin kicking (Collard et al., 2008).
But where it really shines is forcing swimmers to be more deliberate with the upkick phase.
Resisted kicking
For exposing the dead spots in your kick, nothing gives better feedback than adding resistance.
When you put on a pair of DragSox, lasso yourself to a power rack or resistance tubing, or buckle into a drag chute, you’ll learn real quick if your transitions are slow. If there’s a pause in the kick cycle, forward motion crashes to a halt.
In the same way that resisted swimming reduce galloping in the freestyle pull, resisted kicking forces the dolphin kick to apply force continuously. There’s no time for pauses or lazy transitions.
At practice, try alternating reps of resisted and unresisted kicking to show your body what’s what in terms of quicker transitions, leading to faster kicking.
The Bottom Line
Moving, thrashing, and kicking the legs up and down quickly is a great lower body workout but isn’t always enough to kick fast.
Some of the biggest gains in performance can come from simply ironing out moments of deceleration within the kick cycle. Reduce those speed troughs, and the kick becomes smoother, more powerful, and faster with just a little more focus and added effort.
Less speed bumps, more PBs.
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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