Unless you swim the butterfly, is there any use of doing streamlined dolphin kicks in open water? Has anyone dolphin kicked long distance in OW? :rolleyes: (if anyone dolphin kick crossed the English Channel, they wouldn't be called Channel swimmer but Channel kicker :D)
Hmmmm.....
I was thinking about this the other day. In some open water races (triathlons, too), like the Beijing Olympics, the start is from a dock. If you wanted to potentially get a little clear of the mass chaos at the start, maybe SDK for 20 meters or so MIGHT have some value. If nothing else it might be a bit of a shock to competitors to see someone pop up, seemingly out of nowhere, with a few yard lead. Possibly doubly so for some of the pro triathlons, where they do 2 loops for the swim and back up onto the dock and dive off between the two loops.
-LBJ
OK, this is a good point.
Yes, there was a woman (I think British) named Julie Bradshaw who swam the Channel by butterfly only. What I'm interested in is, not butterfly, but just the streamlined dolphin kick, just like a fish. :)
Hmmmm.....
I was thinking about this the other day. In some open water races (triathlons, too), like the Beijing Olympics, the start is from a dock. If you wanted to potentially get a little clear of the mass chaos at the start, maybe SDK for 20 meters or so MIGHT have some value. If nothing else it might be a bit of a shock to competitors to see someone pop up, seemingly out of nowhere, with a few yard lead. Possibly doubly so for some of the pro triathlons, where they do 2 loops for the swim and back up onto the dock and dive off between the two loops.
-LBJ
Probably only good advice for those in the lead pack - It would not be fun for either swimmer if you surfaced under someone else...
Frankly the idea of submerging at race start and taking a chance at being trapped underwater by a tight pack of swimmers is terrifying. I would not like that at all. I suppose if you have Phelps like underwater kick you might be OK but since you can't sight to make sure you are swimming competely straight its still not appealling.
Good idea though. Having said that, I do think that someone could do dolphin kick for an open water swim--I think that Jack LaLanne used to do that in some of his old publicity stunt swims. I'm just not sure why you would want to do that however. I will sometimes do some dolphin kick in mid-swim to break the monotony for whatever reason--get a different feel--but that's with an arm pull of course.
Hmmmm.....
I was thinking about this the other day. In some open water races (triathlons, too), like the Beijing Olympics, the start is from a dock. If you wanted to potentially get a little clear of the mass chaos at the start, maybe SDK for 20 meters or so MIGHT have some value. If nothing else it might be a bit of a shock to competitors to see someone pop up, seemingly out of nowhere, with a few yard lead. Possibly doubly so for some of the pro triathlons, where they do 2 loops for the swim and back up onto the dock and dive off between the two loops.
-LBJ
or if you start to get cramps in your tris or armpits and need to stretch out, but don't want to stop moving fwd.
it could come in handy if one of the follow boats, cuts in front of you and you have to dive under to stop swimming.
