The Fastest Swim Technique - Dolphin Kick

We are so proud of Race Club swimmer Maggie MacNeil who won the 100 meter butterfly Olympic Gold in Tokyo. Maggie has been coming to the Race Club since she was a 13 year old age group swimmer from Ontario, Canada. Through the years we have not been surprised with Maggie's rise to the top from swimming at the University of Michigan to World and Olympic Champ! One thing that Maggie has always excelled at is her dolphin kick.

She recently came to the Race Club in San Diego to work with coach Gary. Using our technology we tested Maggie's strokes, starts and dolphin kick. Once Coach Gary analyzed the results he sat down with Maggie and her coach Rick Bishop at University of Louisiana to go over the results and possible ways to improve.

Maggie MacNeil is the fastest dolphin kicker that we have ever tested at The Race Club. She is the best in 11 of 17 metrics we use to test the dolphin kick technique. Coach Gary highlights 5 key swim techniques that makes her kick so extraordinary and fast. Kick cycle time, knee bend, range of ankle motion, hand movement and hip flexion are the key metrics that coach Gary discusses in this video.

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[rocketdude]

That dolphin kick tempo is insane. Now I understand how olympic-level swimmers have such incredible underwaters.

[robohippy]

This fits in with my 'theories' on the dolphin kick. Had an old school swimmer tell me that I was moving my upper body too much. The kick is a 'crack the whip' action/body wave. Used to play crack the whip on ice skates. The longer the whip, the faster the poor kid on the end went, so using the entire body makes sense. If I want speed, small amplitude and faster cadence. If I want minimum kicks per length of the pool, then high amplitude and slow cadence. I would have liked to see how her upside down dolphin kick compared to the right side up one. Oh, you need a spring steel body to get max results/power. Too loose or too rigid and you lose energy transfer along the path.

[exit]

Holy crap, I've been swimming a long time, this young lady is actually a dolphin. That is as fluid a kick you will ever find

[RobertGuilman]

That's a hell of a dolphin kick, she move like an actual dolphin. Now I'm curious to see a side by side comparison between her dolphin kick and actual dolphin 🐬 lmao

[rofgabor]

beautifully filmed! and very educational, as always!

[JorgeRzezak]

Amazing video and very educational. The best dolphin kick video I've ever seen.

[ClaireRoss-ltlr]

Awesome video love this. Thank you Raceclub. I'm an Australian coach and this will be great help for my swimmers.

[Aaron-zkjn]

Once again goes to show that there are multiple methods to achieve similar results.

Dressel is somewhere around a huge 90+ degrees but in a similar way to Maggie, does not let it go outside his “slip stream”

[Outdoors-HH]

This is the best dolphin kick video I have watched! It also helped me get a better kick. Thanks for the video!🐬🐬🐬

[silversurfer]

Thank you for this great video. It helps people of all ages to better understand how to swim the Butterfly stroke. Butterfly is the stroke you cannot swim with bad technique.

[missbeans]

As a kid in the 80s, Disney's Little Mermaid had just come out, and all my friends and I spent all summer at a friend's pool trying to swim like Ariel! This lady has mastered the mermaid swim! It's also amazing to me, as someone who hasn't been in the swimming world since the early 2000s, how much we are able to learn through underwater video. Back when I was swimming laps for fitness, I remember ordering books on swimming technique from early-days Amazon. If I was lucky, there would be a diagram or illustration. Most of the time, I was trying to envision what the text was describing, and then trying to remember that during my next swim to try to integrate it into my technique. I can learn so much more from a few minutes of video than I could from hours of reading. It's really amazing to me how far swimming has come!

[mariatarazona]

Brilliant! It seems to me that having a body with increased but not exaggerated muscle mass helps him develop strength in his core and extremities and with his dedication to maintaining the right and correct technique to move as necessary and at the same time as quickly.
It seems that he does not move his upper body at all.
she makes it look so easy

[parulshah]

Awesome video love this Thank you so much Race Club 🙏 I am a Indian coach & this video. Very helpful my Swimming And every day Practice Thank you so much 💗🙏 Sir 🙏

[jonigudel]

Big thanks from bali, indonesia 🙏🏼😊🙏🏼

[gioswimmer]

Thanks for the interesting videos analysis. Is her speed faster when she is dolphin kicking on her side compared to regular dolphin kick?

[ceedbourne]

Heu sir thanks for the information you give it us us lover of swimmer you help me a lot with my progression ❤, for me the angle is higher I think because morphology because I see legs longueur that's mean longer distance 😊😊

[brianmcd]

If you had to Fly kick through a narrow tunnel this would have to be the technique.Great Video analysis🙂👍

[Slowhand]

Now we need to see drills/ strength training to get on this path.

[LearnToCompound]

How do I work on my up kick? I have a stronger back kick, and more limited ankle mobility, everything feels a bit stiff.

[mizeri]

how about someone like caeleb dressel? is there some kind of explanation to his underwater kicks or is he just an exception? the way i see his underwater kicks is that he continuously rises every kick