How can I improve my dolphin kick? I feel that my dolphin kick is weak as anything, and I am having trouble with the nice undulating motion of dolphin kick. I am told that the body should undulate from the armpits all the way down with the hands streamlining and staying quite still. Yet my undulating motion feels unnatural. What are some drills or swims that I can do to improve it? And any other tips anyone can give me about dolphin kicks (the backstroke start dolphin kicks too)? Thanks a lot.
Former Member
First, there's a difference between the body dolphin that is at the core of butterfly and the dolphin kick that is used while streamlining in backstroke. The body dolphin starts at your chest, while the dolphin kick starts more at your abdomen.
For a body dolphin, start by pressing your chest into the water and letting the water push it back up again, and let the ripple created by this travel down your body to your toes.
For a dolphin kick, think more about thrusting up and down with your belly button, and letting the ripple travel down to your toes.
Keep in mind that its easier to maintain your momentum using a body dolphin than it is to build momentum. So you should start with a good push off the wall. You also may find it easier to get a feel for it if you try it first using fins, and then try to emulate the same feeling with the fins off.
Bob
Thx. The dolphin kick used in powering to the 15m mark in all strokes except breaststroke is the dolphin kick I'm questioning. Any other tips to make it more efficient? I'm feeling that the undulating motion of my dolphin kick is rather forced and feels all solid instead of a rippling motion.
Obviously, I can't see your dolphin kick from here, but a problem that people frequently encounter is that they haven't found their body's natural pulsing rhythm.
I remember a high school physics class where the teacher had suspended a slinky from the ceiling using strings. You could grab one end of the slinky and move it from side to side, and the ripples would travel all the way down its length. But the size of the pulses depended on the speed at which you moved the slinky. If you tried to move it too fast (or too slow), the pulses that traveled down the slinky wouldn't be very big. But if you could find its resonant rhythm, the pulses would get really big.
I've found that some swimmers, because they want to move fast, tend to pulse too quickly, and the result is that their pulsing isn't very effective. I'd suggest that you experiment with different pulsing speeds and try to find the one that seems to fit your body most naturally. For me, at least, the pulsing I do while streamlining starts at my hips rather than my chest. I think about thrusting my belly button up and down, and let the ripple travel down to my toes.
Also, make sure you are keeping a tight streamline with your arms while you are pulsing. You should be pressing your arms tightly against your head right behind your ears, as though you were shaping your body into a needle.
Hope this helps!
Bob
Thanks. That really helped. I'm now thinking of moving abdomen up and down, doing pelvic thrusts in the water =D, then letting the wave travel down to the toes. However, it is not very fast. =(. What are some ways that I can improve my dolphin kick (make it move faster)? I STILL don't feel any power coming from it, and feel like my legs are simply slipping through the water.
Oh please suggest any drills I can do to improve this, or do I just have to power up down the pool 50 times per workout?
A drill that is often suggested for improving dolphin kicking is vertical kicking. One nice thing about it is that you get very clear feedback on what is effective and what is not by how high in the water you can keep yourself.
