How to Easily Double (Or Triple) Your Velocity In Fly, Back, Or Freestyle

How to Easily Double (Or Triple) Your Velocity In Fly, Back, Or Freestyle

Abbie Fish of Ritter Sports Performance gives a backstory on the history of underwater kicking in swimming and provides an analysis on its importance to faster swimming.

Apr 12, 2017 by Abbie Fish Fish
How to Easily Double (Or Triple) Your Velocity In Fly, Back, Or Freestyle
Welcome back! Last week we discussed the fine line between distance per stroke and stroke rate. If you read last week's blog post, you now know there is no "right" way to swim. The ideal balance between these two technical aspects is to maximize your DPS while maintaining a high SR.

Not sure what that means? Then catch up on last week's blog post HERE.

This week we plan to dive deeper into how you can easily double your velocity in freestyle, butterfly, or backstroke. There is one key element of these races that is often overlooked, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense due to the fact that the world's most elite swimmers have all mastered and maximized their use of it.

If you haven't already been told, let's go over the magic of underwater dolphin kicking.

Underwater dolphin kicking (sometimes referred to as the "fifth stroke") has not always been popular within swimming races. To give a little bit of back story on underwater kicking (UK), no one really knows who invented it. There are rumors that in 1911 George Corsan, an instructor and pool designer for the YMCA, was teaching the "fishtail" kick. Also (much later) in 1935, Jack Sieg of University of Iowa used it in his breaststroke (aka butterfly) races -- butterfly wasn't an officially recognized stroke until 1952.

Also in the 1950s, coaches started to realize that breaking the surface increased friction and therefore, may slow down the swimmer. This belief affect the breaststroke stroke predominantly. Many swimmers started staying underwater (UW) as long as possible each length. In the 1956 Olympics, Masaru Furukawa won gold in the 200m breaststroke by swimming the first three lengths -- 45m UW. The last length he only made it to 25m UW but still finished a body length ahead of the field. Eventually, the breaststroke pullout rule was established.

Between the 1950s and 1980s, few occurrences of the dolphin kick arose (i.e. Jesse Vassallo, Daichi Suzuki, and David Berkoff). But, by the time the 1988 Olympics rolled around -- five out of eight finalists in the 100m backstroke stayed at least 25m underwater off the start. Check out this crazy Olympic final below:



Quickly after the 100m backstroke final in 1988, FINA made a rule to restrict underwater kicking to 10m in backstroke. By 1991, the distance was changed to 15m. It wasn't until the 1998, that the 15m rule applied to other strokes as well.

With that being said...

Why does underwater kicking work?

1.) The push off from the wall (or block)


2.) The horizontal, streamlined position

3.) Small, tight, and fast dolphin kicks

It is the push off from the wall (or block) that creates the high speed underwater. The streamlined, horizontal position is what helps sustain the high speed (due to less frontal drag). And lastly, the constant and consistent small, tight, and fast dolphin kicks allow a swimmer to maintain that high speed for as long as he or she can (for up to 15m).

If you are proficient at all three of these characteristics (A to C), you can create an underwater kicking speed two to three times faster than your surface swim speed. If one of those three characteristics is off, the speed underwater won't be as high (or as well maintained).

Take for example (the fastest man on earth right now), Caeleb Dressel. The Florida junior is known for maximizing his use of underwaters. At the most recent NCAA championships, Dressel cleaned up -- claiming the 50 free (18.23), 100 free (40.00), and 100 fly (43.58) race titles. I performed a race analysis on his 100-yard fly and found some astonishing results:

During his 100 fly, Dressel spent over 55 percent of his race underwater. Why?

His average underwater velocity was 2.84 m/s, while his average surface velocity was 1.84 m/s -- an entire meter per second difference!

Dressel not only understands the benefits of underwater kicking but also uses it to his advantage during his races.

No one can touch Dressel right now -- not even close. Maybe it is time you learn from the best and put this work into practice. After all, an easily attainable way to doubling your velocity in the pool sounds like a nice, quick time drop to me.

Don't forget to tune in next week -- I plan to finish up our segment on the dolphin kick by talking more in depth about the technical aspects of the kick itself. Plus, I'll give you some drills and workout tips to include in your workouts.
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Abbie Fish has been in the competitive swimming realm for over 20 years. After capping off a successful career at University of Georgia, Abbie soon found herself back on the deck as a coach.

Currently, Abbie is a Technique Swim Coach at Ritter Sports Performance. She spends her time analyzing race videos and studying different style of stroke technique. If you'd like your stroke analyzed, or a swimmer of yours -- visit their website: http://www.rittersp.com/video for more information or email Abbie at abbie@rittersp.com.