Everything You Need To Know About The DOLPHIN KICK

Today's top swimmers are able to move through the water at Unbelievable speeds and the best swimmers are able to generate leverage Using their entire bodies so they can cut through the water like never before if you look at any elite swimming competition You'll see the best swimmers in the world push off the wall in a tight streamline position and go up to 15 meters Underwater in what seems to be just a matter of seconds now Remember underwater dolphin kicking is like the fifth stroke of swimming It's literally a new invention that was popularized about 30 to 40 years ago until 1988 Backstrokers could kick underwater as far as they wanted before they started swimming But after American David Burkoff kicked a whopping 35 meters underwater on the first length of the hundred back at the 1988 Olympics World aquatics decided to impose a limit of just 10 meters underwater these days Swimmers can go no more than 15 meters underwater before popping up or they could get disqualified How much faster can you actually get the fastest a human can go above the surface of the water doing freestyle is Eight kilometers an hour. We're talking like less than five miles per hour underneath the surface of the water We can get closer to 10 kilometers per hour so far And so I want to take a look at the leaderboard for the fastest aquatic creatures and how fast they can actually move through the water Starting at the top with the black marlin. It can clock 129 kilometers per hour next up we have the sailfish a hundred and nine kilometers per hour and then the swordfish nearly a hundred kilometers per hour a Fish is moving through the water so quickly because it can leverage Its entire body length if you want to swim fast underwater you want to replicate this type of pattern But you also have to keep in mind that you're a human and you don't have the same Flexibility or range of motion that a fish does a fish can actually apply pressure at every single point of its frame Whereas a human has only three points of inflection So can only bend the hips from the knees and then from the ankles The kick actually starts from your chest moves down to your core and then your hips your ankles are like the end of a whip Snapping to finish the kick don't kick from your knees. Keep your legs together and use your hips like you're a dolphin You'll kind of feel like you're doing the worm down the pool Most of the power comes from your core and your hips to drive your legs forward a kick That doesn't mean that your legs shouldn't bend It really just means that you need to relax and focus on your hips to start the kick rather than your knees Pressing with your chest it kind of getting that flow is really important How do you know how big your kick should be? We need to make sure that we are not kicking too small that we're not getting the propulsive benefit Conversely if our kick was so big we would end up creating more drag when you kick dolphin kick You shouldn't really bend your knees a lot You should point your toes and the profile of your body should be as streamlined as possible If the amplitude of your kick is too big Then you're actually gonna slow yourself down because the benefit of that increased propulsion is gonna be minimized and reduced By the amount of drag that you're creating and so we're gonna share three tips on how you can improve your dolphin kick That you can start to apply in every single workout and every single time you do a dolphin kick off the wall So the first is to focus on two directional kicking If we break apart the dolphin kick you have the up kick which is using the front of your body You're using your abs your hip flexors and your quads and then you have the down kick You're using your lower back your glutes and your hamstring And so most people when they're just starting out learning how to swim and learning how to do the dolphin kick They're only good at the up kick most people neglect in training the down kick Which is actually the most important part of the kick to improve if you want to improve your overall dolphin kick And so the most efficient kickers are able to have both the power phase of the kick and the recovery Almost equal to each other The flow drill is a fantastic way to engage your entire core and really feel your body moving through the water sort of like a Dolphin right on top of the water with your hips pushing your body forward using your chest to lead the movement and really working on Engaging your core. In this drill both of your arms are straight in front of you resting on the top of the water These are just to hold you in place and your arms won't do anything for this drill You'll be pressing with your chest and then your hips to kind of give that rhythm of your butterfly kick This drill teaches you that the power of your kick comes from your core You don't want to start your kick from your knees You want to start all the way from the top of your body down to your feet I recommend slowing down and taking your time doing this drill What's important is figuring out the feeling of the kick? Flowing from one point in your body to the next if you want you can add fins to really emphasize your kick You can also use a snorkel to keep your head in line with your spine for good body position all the way down the pool Now the second point is training the dolphin kick in all four planes of motion So that means kicking on your front on your right side as well as your left side so you could do this with one arm up and then your opposite shoulder is dry out of water and Finally making sure you kick on your back Now there's a difference between intentional practice and just doing a lot of underwater dolphin kick You can actually get a lot more out of it in terms of developing your feel of the water and you might not need to Actually do that much more underwater dolphin kick I first want to show you a set that you can do that leverages all of these different skills So we're gonna go 825s flow drill the first one Streamline on your stomach on the surface of the water. Remember you're trying to create pressure across the entire Range of your body So you're pressing your chest down your hips come up and your butt literally gets dry out of the water Then the second one you're gonna flip it over onto your side on the third one You're gonna flip over to your other side and then on the fourth one You're gonna flip it over onto your back and now you're actually gonna put your hands in streamline and you're gonna really engage your core And really work this undulation now, we're gonna go for 75s on each 25 We're gonna build our dolphin kicks meaning we're gonna take more dolphin kicks on every single wall three rounds of this So on the first round, we're gonna do it all natural then the second round. We're gonna add a piece of equipment Maybe we're gonna add paddles Maybe we're gonna add fins and on the third round we're gonna another piece of equipment and so what this is going to do is you're going to develop your feel of the water because You're being intentional with your training now. We've taken care of the technique part Let's take a look at how some of the best underwater kickers in the world apply everything We talked about into their strokes now a lot of butterflies actually have a different size Amplitude when I'm talking about amplitude. I'm talking about the total the distance in How far you're kicking both up and down so Michael actually has a relatively bigger Amplitude than a lot of other swimmers do doesn't mean anyone is wrong or right. Everyone has different body positions strength flexibility and that all factors in but if you notice Michael is kicking in both the down direction as well as the up direction and The faster you can kick in the up direction Then the faster you can return to the down kick, which is actually more powerful Look at this streamline the dolphin kick actually starts with the hands. It's a total body undulation Pointing the toes Look at that all the way to 15 meters He does it on his front side on his backside for backstroke when you look at this underwater swim I mean, yes, she has incredible streamline and body line. I talked about this with Jordan Croak She's starting with her upper body and she's able to create propulsion all the way through all the different ranges of motion Remember we as humans have limbs we can't kick as fast as fish But if you can use every part of your body and increase the surface area You're gonna be that much faster and this is something that she's able to do incredibly well So if you want to level up your swimming, you've got to have a game plan You got to make sure you're thinking about these things, but don't overthink it Keep it simple and check out this video if you want to take your swimming to the next level