The Benefits of Vertical Dolphin Kicking (and Sets to Get You Started) ...Middle East

By Olivier Poirier-Leroy on SwimSwam

Want faster, technically superior dolphin kicks? Here’s why you should add vertical dolphin kicking, along with sample sets.

Fast underwaters are an essential skill for swimmers. They can boost start performance, sharpen breakouts, and when done like a pro, are faster than surface swimming speeds.

And one of my favorite ways to train a faster underwater dolphin kick is vertical kicking.

Find yourself a quiet, deeper-than-body-height corner of the pool, get vertical, and kick to keep your head out of the water.

It’s as simple as it is versatile.

Vertical dolphin kicking is a great way to fine-tune kick mechanics, improve kick fitness, boost power, and vary up your UDK training.

Here is why swimmers should add it to their swim workouts and some sample sets to chase down crispy underwaters.

Benefits of Vertical Dolphin Kicking

Faster kicking

The most obvious reason to do it: vertical kicking can help your dolphin kick become faster and more powerful.

A study with swimmers looked at the effects of adding regular vertical freestyle kick with junior swimmers over five months. The vertical kick group improved 50m free kick by 4.56% and kicked more efficiently, using less kicks to go faster. The control group got slightly slower.

Vertical kicking works so well for kick speed because it removes buoyancy as a crutch. You either kick hard enough to keep your head above water or sink.

That forced honesty and accountability leads to a more powerful, fast kick when you shift back to horizontal kicking.

Promotes better kick technique

Fast dolphin kicking is a mix of power, tempo and technique.

That last part is the hardest to master for several reasons, from improper phase timing (e.g. the knee leading the kick) to insufficient undulation to create a powerful enough body wave to create real propulsion.

Going vertical gives swimmers a chance to really feel out the full movement without being limited by breathing constraints.

They can better isolate the trunk and hips leading the motion, the knees following, and the ankles then snapping.

If undulation is the source of your underwater frustrations, try pairing some dryland work (kettlebell swings, core training) with slow and exaggerated vertical dolphin kicking to open undulation and stronger dolphin kicks.

Cleaner transitions

Kicking vertically naturally teaches swimmers to move more smoothly between phases of the kick cycle.

These transitions matter because they are where swimmers create the most frontal drag when dolphin kicking. At the bottom of the downkick and the top of the upkick, the body is in its least streamlined positions.

Vertical dolphin kicking highlights these drag-heavy spots immediately. If you spend too much time in transition, you start to sink or bob.

To keep your head above water (important), the kick cycle has to be smooth, continuous, and connected.

Equipment-free resisted kicking

Resisted kicking is an essential for swimmers looking to develop a more powerful dolphin kick. Whether we are talking about DragSox, resistance tubing, chutes, or a power rack, these tools increase force output and can also shine a light on deceleration gaps in the kick cycle.

The catch is that it requires the equipment and space to use them, not always optimal in a busy training pool.

Vertical kicking removes this limitation. Beginners can start with hands lightly sculling in front of them—or even holding the wall for support.

As you get stronger, increase the difficulty by raising the hands, then the arms out of the water.

Medicine balls, weight belts, and holding a streamlined arm position over the head can be used for elite kickers looking for mega power.

Strengthens the kick muscles

Vertical dolphin kicking strengthen the exact muscles that power the UDK.

A study with junior swimmers (Suciu and Popovici, 2014) had them do six weeks of vertical kicking while wearing a weight belt. Afterward, swimmers’ quads showed significant gains in knee extensor strength.

Stronger knee extension doesn’t just give us more oomph in the downkick phase (where most of the propulsion in the dolphin kick happens) but also helps stabilize the legs through the whole kick cycle.

Good news is that you don’t need to use a weight belt to approximate the same level of load—as we saw in the previous point, raising the arms above the head can do the trick too.

Work tempo

Tempo—how frequently you complete a kick cycle—is a big part of the dolphin kick puzzle. Swimmers need to be able to generate big kick power, but they also need to reproduce that power repeatedly, off every wall and under increasing fatigue.

This is where tempo training while vertical dolphin kicking can help swimmers build the timing and conditioning to sustain power.

Kicking vertically allows swimmers to test tempo conditioning for extended periods of time without being limited by breathing constraints.

Pick a target tempo—2 kicks per second, for example—and see how long you can hold target tempo on the pace clock (e.g. 20 kicks in 10 seconds). No Tempo Trainer required.

As tempo control improves, introduce light resistance with DragSox to further strengthen tempo timing and make your goal tempo feel “easier.”

Sample Vertical Dolphin Kick Sets

Here are some sample sets to get the vertical dolphin kick juices flowing:

General endurance

Tempo work

Potentiation sets

Power development

Wrapping Things Up

Vertical dolphin kicking is an awesome form of accessory training for your regular dolphin kicking.

It works great with other dolphin kick boosters, including kick counts, resisted (horizontal) kicking, consistent walls, fish kicking, and so on.

It’s a form of low-cost, high-return UDK training that can help improve the things that matter most to your swimming.

At the pool this week, get vertical with your kick and apply it to faster horizontal dolphin 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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