Bob Bowman’s Favourite Underwater Dolphin Kick Set

Lots goes into dolphin kicking like a champ every time you disappear beneath the floor.

Beyond the method challenges, that are a lot difficult on their very own, there’s growing the conditioning to have the ability to preserve kicking arduous and quick when your legs are burning and your lungs are not-so-politely requesting you to floor for a breath.

Plus, dolphin kicking is straight up more durable than swimming.

For instance, a research (Sergovia-SanBenito et al., 2025) in contrast swimmers doing quick 25s underwater dolphin kicking and full-stroke swimming. The underwater reps produced roughly 50% extra lactate although there was related oxygen saturation and perceived effort.

Which means swimmers want to coach the dolphin kick just like the talent that it’s.

And this dolphin kick set, one of many common UDK coaching instruments for Bob Bowman’s elite athletes, is designed particularly to bullet-proof your underwaters.

The Bowman Dolphin Kick Set

The set is easy. Just a bunch of 25s. Doesn’t look too robust.

But Bowman is upfront in regards to the problem:

“It’s one of the hardest things that we do,” he mentioned throughout an ASCA presentation in 2025 when he mentioned this set.

The repeated quick underwaters stresses the legs whereas the quick bouts of straightforward swimming present simply sufficient restoration to maintain the kicking high quality at AAA-levels. Instead of stacking one or two quick underwaters, you’re stocking a warehouse of race-relevant reps.

Bowman’s swimmers do the set in a brief course yards pool whereas carrying fins. This is intentional and to not make the set simpler—a research with swimmers (Wang et al., 2025) confirmed that arduous kicking with fins will increase theoretical energy output by ~26%.

Here is the set:

2-3 rounds:

• 4×25 free swim straightforward on :20
• 4×25 UDK quick on :20
• 3×25 free swim straightforward on :20
• 3×25 UDK quick on :20
• 2×25 free swim straightforward on :20
• 2×25 UDK quick on :20
• 1×25 free swim straightforward on :20
• 1×25 UDK quick on :20

Bowman has his swimmers do the third spherical on :15. (They are elite for a purpose.)

Why the Recovery Matters

Those intervals look intimidating for these of us not named Kós or Marchand, nevertheless it’s necessary to keep in mind that these are among the finest swimmers and kickers on the planet. Bowman’s swimmers get round 10 seconds per relaxation on the wall earlier than pushing off once more, making it mainly a 1:1 work-to-rest ratio.

That’s sufficient time to take a number of breaths, mentally reset, and assault the following repetition with gusto.

“The key element in these underwaters is that they have breathing time on the wall,” he defined.

For causes which are hopefully apparent to swimmers and coaches (see additionally: Shallow Water Blackout – Do You Know What It is? You Should), underwater units (particularly on the finish of a tough exercise) shouldn’t be survival contests the place they floor, take one harried breath, and wrestle by more and more sloppy dolphin kicks.

For youthful swimmers, Bowman provides a variation to make use of as an on-ramp to the set:

2-3 rounds:

• 1×25 free swim on :30
• 1×12.5 UDK, 12.5 swim on :30
• 1×25 free swim on :30
• 1×25 UDK on :30

“For young kids, they [should] have full recovery,” mentioned Bowman. “You don’t want to do it where they’re coming up, taking one breath, and then pushing off again.”

Wrapping Things Up

If you’re attempting to improve your underwater dolphin kick, don’t simply work on it while you’re recent or at gradual and simple speeds.

To construct quick underwaters which you can depend on in competitors, that you must prepare them in follow and want to coach them arduous. Especially given how a lot of a metabolic price ticket extending your underwaters can have.

Start with a easy, high-rest model of the set. Steadily enhance distance and rep quantity. And kick your strategy to sooner underwaters Bowman-style.

Happy kicking!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national-level swimmer, 2x Olympic Trials qualifier, and writer of a number of books for swimmers, together with The Dolphin Kick Manual: The Swimmer’s Ultimate Guide to a Fast Underwater Dolphin Kick.

The guide is a beastly 240+ pages of actionable insights and analysis into elite dolphin kicking method and efficiency. It particulars every part from mastering undulation to vortex recapturing to structuring a dryland program for dolphin kicking success.

The Dolphin Kick Manual combines evidence-based insights with a group of 20 ready-to-go units and a 6-week Action Plan to assist swimmers set a course for dolphin kicking success.

Train smarter and kick sooner.

👉👉👉 Learn more about The Dolphin Kick Manual