by Dr. Paul Hutinger
Question: When I push off the wall on backstroke, is it better to dolphin kick or flutter kick?
Answer: Almost all top backstrokers dolphin kick off the wall, then flutter kick for the breakout. However, the kick must be very narrow and quick; a slow, big dolphin kick could slow you down as you can push off the wall faster than you can swim.
Underwater kicking is faster than surface swimming and limited to 15 meters off the wall (yellow marker on lane line). If you have a good dolphin kick, use this challenge to improve your backstroke. Practice with zoomers instead of fins to keep you kick narrow.
Sets you could use on your back, without a board, with zoomers and a nose clip are : 8 x 25 dolphin kicks underwater @ 1:00, or 4 x 50 staying under water the maximum distance@ 2:00. On kick sets, do 10 kicks underwater before surfacing, and include swimming under the flags with turns as part of these sets.
Berkoff, past world record holder and Olympian, did sets of 10 x 50m underwater dolphin kicks, with fins @ 45 seconds and held 35 seconds. A high school swimmer in Florida swam 46.9 for 100y back, 80% under water. Bill Specht, 41, has the 100 SCM back record, 59.26, and does almost 50% of his stroke underwater with a short fast dolphin kick. He does sets of 100 LCM kicks, with zoomers, at a 1:20 pace.
These examples show the importance and speed of underwater dolphin.
Anyone wanting additional information or having personal questions, please send a large SASE to
You can e-mail me at phut@usms.org