Learning the Underwater Dolphin

Important Note to the Viewer

LESSONS: 5 VIDEOS

Learning the Underwater Dolphin - Step 1

There are few things in swimming that cross the lines of all strokes, but learning the underwater dolphin is certainly the most important. This is the first installment of a series on how to learn a good underwater dolphin. While there are different ways to go about this, this sequence is pretty simple, and will be familiar to many of you. Why Do It: The underwater dolphin is the fastest many swimmers will ever travel in the water. It's become a staple of swimming on all levels, and can mean the difference between winning and losing in just about every event. How to Do It: 1. Step one starts with simple, head-lead body-dolphin exercise. Push off with hands at your sides and by initiate some gentle presses of the chest, allowing the hips and feet to follow the movement. 2. Do your best to keep the head stable, and not let it bob. Send the top of the head forward. 3. Try not to bend your knees too much, but allow the legs to flow. If you're going too deep, or kicking too hard, increase the rate of your pulses just a bit. 4. Roll over and try the same exercise on your back. Remember, the ultimate goal of this will be to accomplish a great dolphin movement on your front, back, or side. 5. Keep your thighs close to the surface of the water, but barely allow your knees to break the surface. How to Do It Really Well (the Fine Points): If you're having a hard time with this, put on some fins. Don't use the fins for more speed or power, but just allow the larger surface area to push you forward a bit more. Learning the underwater dolphin means learning to flow with your entire body. Do this by initiating the first step very slowly.

Learning the Underwater Dolphin - Step 2

Last week we started a simple progression for learning the underwater dolphin. This week we'll progress to the next part of the sequence. Why Do It: The underwater dolphin is the single most important skill for all swimmers to master. It should be used in every event in competitive swimming. Simply put, if you're not great at this skill, you limit your potential as a competitive swimmer. How to Do It: 1. Review the head-lead dolphin movement from last week. 2. To advance to the next stage, simply move your hands to a streamline position in front. While streamline is the most effective position when executing this move in a race or in practice, it's OK to to use locked thumbs (instead of perfect streamline) in the learning stage. This will allow you a bit more freedom of movement through your chest and torso. 3. Start on your stomach, and focus on keeping the hands about 6" below the surface of the water. Think about pushing the fingertips directly forward. 4. Use the abs and hips to generate the undulating movement that travels through to the feet. Do your best not to bend the knees too much, but allow the knees and feet to react to the movement of the hips. 5. Flip over on your back and continue the same movement. 6. While on your back, be careful not to allow your hands to travel out of the water. Keep them below the surface. This will stretch out your abs, and keep your back flatter. 7. With your legs, try to allow just the knees and a bit of the thighs to touch the surface of the water. How to Do It Really Well (the Fine Points): Think about staying fairly rigid from the fingers to the head, but allow the body to start flowing from the head/shoulder area. Be careful not to brace with your palms at any point of this drill, but spear with the fingertips. Also try not to let your hips sink while you're on your back, which will require you to KICK and BEND your legs too much. If you're struggling for air while learning the underwater dolphin, use a centermount snorkel to allow you to practice this drill for a longer period of time.

Learning the Underwater Dolphin - Step 3

In Step 3 to learning the underwater dolphin, it's finally time to take it under water. Add to Cart View Cart - Pick up the Margaret Hoelzer DVD and watch dolphin for backstroke! Why Do It: In Steps 1 and 2, you learned the dolphin movement while on the surface of the water. In Step 3, you'll go through the same learning sequence, but you want to stay away from the surface. How to Do It: 1. Review and rehearse all 4 steps leading up to this point. Head-lead dolphin on your front. Head-lead dolphin on your back. Hand-lead dolphin on your front. Hand-lead dolphin on your back. 2. Now, simply go through the same sequence while completely under water. Start with head lead on your stomach, and make sure you focus on sending the top of your head on a direct path through the water. Don't push the face down, but use the body to drive the head forward. 3. Flip over on your back, and try again. This is much tougher with the hands behind, and try your best to NOT tuck the chin, but lay your head back. This gives the water a MUCH better chance to get up your nose, so practice this for short distances, with air constantly coming out of the nose. 4. NOW it's time for the perfect streamline. Push off on your stomach with your hands in streamline and lock your head between your arms. Drive the hands forward, not up and down, by using the body from the abs, to the hips, and allowing the legs to follow the movement but adding the snap. 5. Flip over on your back and stay in streamline. With your head locked between your arms, remember to allow air to come out through your nose. Continue to focus on your body movement, rather than powering too much from the legs. How to Do It Really Well (the Fine Points): When you get to streamline, locking tightly with the hands encourages the body to do the work. If you allow the hands to do the work...letting them go up and down too much... you'll weaken the snap through the legs. Start to experiment with angles, as we'll be addressing that, and WHERE to use the underwater dolphin, in the next segment.

Learning the Underwater Dolphin - Step 4

Continuing our series in learning the underwater dolphin, it's time to make things dynamic. Why Do It: Learning the underwater dolphin will help make you faster at the start of every race, and off every turn. Learning the underwater dolphin in every position ...on the front, back, or side... will give you an even greater advantage because you'll be able to adjust to every angle of pushoff and you'll be able to check out your competition. How to Do It: 1. Start by rehearsing the underwater dolphin in the positions you're most comfortable with, flat on your stomach, or flat on your back. 2. Next, push off on your stomach and kick for a few cycles, then rotate to your side. Maintain the same rhythm of the kick. 3. Repeat but rotate to your other side. 4. Now pick a side, start on that side, and rotate to your back. 5. Repeat to the other side. 6. Spend some time kicking specifically on your side. This is a bit more challenging, but is a great teacher of bodyline and balance in this drill. How to Do It Really Well (the Fine Points): Put all the directions together. This revisits and old drill called 360 Dolphin Rotation that we posted a few years ago, but is now a bit more integrated into the sequence. Do your best to always driv the fingers forward, and not up and down. We've also received many emails about the fins we're using during this drill. They are the Alpha fins by Aqua Sphere.

Learning the Underwater Dolphin - Step 5

In moving up the ladder in mastering the underwater dolphin, more fine points come out. The quickest way to work through these, is to focus on one. Why Do It: Isolating what makes you move forward in the underwater dolphin makes the entire motion more purposeful. How to Do It: 1. While you don't have to use a Finis Monofin to attempt this focal point, the larger the fin, the easier it is for you to experience this particular feeling. 2. The goal is simple: Isolate a stable hand and head position as you accelerate down the pool with your larger fins. 3. Try to go as fast as possible as you perform the underwater dolphin, keeping your mind focused on NOT moving your hands up and down at all. 4. Feel the body dolphin movement starting as high in the body as possible (yet still behind the shoulders). Chest, then hips, then thighs, and extending through the feet. The farther back toward the feet the move gets, the larger it gets. How to Do It Really Well (the Fine Points): This drill, in itself, is a fine point. Too many swimmers lead this movement with the hands and head when, in reality, you need to have a very tight and solid edge cutting through the water out front, and piercing the water. The stiffer this leading edge, the bigger the whip at the end of the body.